Grace is Gone
by phfina
Summary: Chapter 5: "I need a dollar, dollar, dollar is all I need! Hey, hey!" But Latricia didn't say anything about that! She just said come, and I came... over. I came over. And that still didn't save Grace. No, it only made it worse. WARNING: Domestic violence. Coercion. Lots of it.
1. Invite

**Chapter summary:** Whatever happened to Grace Park? You know, that happens to somebody in your school, right? One day she's there, and the next day she's just ... gone. Nobody knows her name anymore. Nobody remembers her. So, what happened with Grace Park? Lemme tell you.

* * *

Let me tell you a story.

The funny thing about this story? It's all true.

Hi. My name's Rebekah Isaac. I go to Annandale High School, _not_ TJ like my asshole-genius brother, Da5id (yes, that's his name) (don't ask, it only encourages him), and I have my own sex-slave.

Her name is Grace.

Let me tell you a secret. I am a hard-ass on her. I'm her worst fucking nightmare, ... well, daymare, too, actually.

That's not the secret.

The secret is, and I will never tell her this in her life, is that I love her.

I love me my little Grace Park.

How did I get me a high school senior sex slave when I was just starting out my frosh year?

Well, she, literally, fell into my lap.

Let me tell you a story. Let's start at the beginning.

...

Okay, so, there's me, a little Jew-girl starting out at Annandale High School and with how many Jews at school? Never mind school ... how many Jews in the _county?_ We had to, like, drive out _way_ West to Fairfax city to 'be among our People.' And like we ever did that?

We weren't exactly 'practicing' Jews, whatever that means. We celebrated Christmas, just like everybody else, we didn't go to whatever Bible Church that everybody else went to. We kept our heads down and our noses clean. We were well-off, but we didn't flaunt it.

Oh, and, like a lot of other families, our parents were getting divorced.

Yeah. That.

I think the only reason why my parents stayed together was because of Da5id. I mean, he was full-on ADD/Aspbergers. He was, like, okay, he was going to _Thomas Jefferson_ but he was _impressing_ people there. He was on the Math Team, and probably going to end up at MIT. Brilliant-smart. Scary-smart. bb, that's what I call him, 'bb' for 'big brother,' was a bit unhinged. I think he needed to get away from his comics collection and get laid, you know? Get outside for once in his life and actually talk to people.

Otherwise he'd end up as a newspaper article, you know? Like what happened at Virginia Tech, and now other places, too, where the nerd obsesses over a girl, gets all weird about it...

Then goes through the school with loaded automatic weapons.

I'd pity him, if I didn't hate him so much.

Da5id was the star child. He could do no wrong, and I was the invisible child, and I could do _nothing_ that Da5id didn't already do, and way better than I ever could, and didn't he just _strut_ into the house every quarter when he got his report card.

I did good at school. Great, in fact. All A's. An occasional B. I was near the top of my class in elementary.

But who cares? In eleventh grade, Da5id was taking college courses. Not 'college _prep_ courses,' he was actually taking honest-to-G-d college courses.

And acing them. Of course. And didn't Dear-old-Dad have to announce that every time at the supper table when he was home from work.

Dad's a lawyer. Mom's a doctor. I'm surprised they even know each other's names anymore.

I'd be surprised if they knew _my_ name.

Do you remember my name, by the way?

... yeah, didn't think so. Thanks for that.

So, there's this ... _Grrl_ at school, her name's Latricia, and she's on the football team.

Yes, you just read that right. Latricia is one of the few black girls at school, and she was the _only_ girl, white or black, on the football team. Did she get teased?

Oh, no, she did not. You wanted to tease Latricia if you wanted your face punched through your locker.

Shoot. What was my combination again?

A frosh's worse nightmare: forgetting where her locker is, and then forgetting her combination.

And then being late to class.

And showing up in only her bra and panties.

And being scolded by the teacher and made to sit in the front row of desks in front of everybody with everybody staring at you and laughing at you behind your back.

Worst. Nightmare. Ever!

You see, though, Latricia was one tough motherfucker, and she played football, and the boys from the other team didn't hold back, thinking they could make a nice little hole in the defense, right through Latricia.

That was before the first tackle. Then it was Latricia barreling through you, over you, her cleats on your face, and then offering you a hand up, saying _'Good hit!'_ as she pulled your face up from the dirt.

And _that_ is how a girl hits.

People didn't tease Latricia. They _feared_ her.

Well, it went around school that Latricia and Grace were a thing, and if you can think of the exact opposite of Latricia, then you think Grace. Grace was a good, kind, sweet girl, shy and quiet. Nerdy. Straight-As. Smart, but not scary-smart, like Da5id. I mean, Da5id could skip a grade — Hell, he could skip _two_ grades, pack up and go to college, and leave me alone, please, o G-d — and he wouldn't even notice nor care. For others there'd be catching up, for Da5id the only catching up he'd need to do is catching up on his sleep, as always. For others, there'd be the readjustment of the loss of your old friends and trying to make new ones in your new grade. Da5id, though?

"_Friends? What's that?"_ he'd ask.

Loser. With a capital-'L.'

Grace wasn't like that. She was a nice person, so far as I could tell, a frosh looking at a senior, and she kept to herself and her studies, but she wasn't asocial nor antisocial. She was even on the cheerleading squad. A thin kid like her, not too tall? She was perfect as a flyer.

And that's how Latricia noticed her.

One day, nothing unusual, the next day, after a long weekend where Grace was helping Latricia study, and they were ... a thing.

Nothing official, but now Grace followed Latricia wherever she went, before, during, and after school, even though they took different classes. _Way_ different. Latricia wasn't stupid, by any stretch, but she wasn't a genius, by any stretch, either. Grace was smart and in all the AP classes, lined up to go to University of Virginia with a scholarship and everything.

Which was good. She's Korean. Her family's Korean, and the Koreans swept into Annandale, the armpit of Northern Virginia and transformed it into Korea-town ten years ago or so, and what used to be derelict lots where now Sheila bakeries and Cricket phone outlets and Kumon learning centers and lime-green Froyo shops and H-mart and Lotte supermarkets and ... well, everything. Annandale was scary before, empty, and now it was vibrant and alive and bustling, all thanks to the Koreans.

But that didn't mean all the Koreans were rich. Some of them, a lot of them, lived in the poorer apartment buildings in town, not far from AHS, like on Americana drive or behind the H-Mart. Not all the Koreans had a palatial house on Hummer drive.

Case in point: the Parks.

So, college, with a scholarship, for Grace, and she'd get to be a doctor.

Just like my mom. Joy.

But what can you do? Our family's well-off, but I never see my parents. My _brother's_ more a parent to me than my parents, and please don't remind me of that, thanks.

Grace sees her family, but they're poor. Her, being a doctor?

Wouldn't that just make her parents die of happiness and relief? _'Our daughter's a doctor. We don't live the American dream, but we sacrificed so that she could.'_

It was written all over their faces, what I saw of them, making sure she did well in school, her father so proud and so aloof, her mother so ... well, proud and aloof, too. Both so proud their daughter was doing well in school.

I wonder what they thought of Latricia?

I wonder if they _knew_ about Latricia?

Somehow, I think they didn't.

Well, I was in the cheerleading squad, too, and that just was the be-all and end-all for me. Here's something that I could do that no way in hell my brother could do nor even understand. And here was my chance to start to make friends and actually have a social life. Being a cheerleader? That, by definition, made you one of the cool kids, and the team was fiercely loyal to their own. They looked out for you.

I felt I belonged.

I was also getting noticed. By boys. And that was ... nice.

No, it wasn't 'nice.' It was a relief.

It was a relief that I wasn't going to turn out to be all weirded out like my brother. It was a relief that I could talk with other girls and hang out and not feel like an outsider anymore.

That feeling? Being in? and not an outsider?

Once you feel that, you don't go back to being on the fringe. It's not cool to be a loner or a hater or a nerd. It fucking sucks. High school was my fresh start, and I was seizing that bull by _both_ horns, and not letting go, and not looking back.

No way in hell was I going to end up like my brother.

Boys noticed me now. Girls? Notice my brother? Only if they wanted to cheat on a test.

But more than just boys noticed me, the frosh cheerleader.

One night, after cheerleader practice, Grace came up to me, which was, okay, _weird,_ because why would a Senior want to talk to a frosh?

"H-hey, Becca," Grace said.

Everything in her posture said she was scared to death of something.

"Hey," I said carefully.

"Hey," Grace said.

We just looked at each other.

I blinked.

"So, ..." Grace tried again. "Latricia was, like ... wondering if you'd like to hang out at her place ... a-after this ... or something. S-she, ..." she swallowed. "Her mom's got the night shift, 'n-'nd, you know, so ... we could ... study. And stuff. And ..."

Grace looked around quickly to see if anyone else was listening into our conversation. Everybody else had already filed out of the locker room to go home. "And, you know. Alcohol. If you want."

Grace went white. "Or not."

She looked like she was about to run away. Or puke. Or both.

"Um," I said, thinking.

Grace.

And Latricia.

'Hang' with them.

Like that's not weird.

But ... to hang out with Seniors? They could study. And I could study. And I could have a drink. If I wanted.

_And_ my parents didn't get home until late from their respective jobs, so they wouldn't notice if I came home late from cheerleading practice. They wouldn't even be home yet.

And like they checked on me when they did get home at 10 pm, or 11 pm, or ... midnight, 1, 2, 3 am, or even not at all when Dad had a big case he was prosecuting (when wasn't he?) or when Mom was up all night delivering another baby for a mom-to-be that wanted to go natural?

"How do I get home?" I asked.

I didn't know where Latricia lived. Couldn't be far, but walk home in the dark? Or beg bb to come and pick me up?

_Ick._

"Uhm ..." Grace said. "I guess Latricia could bring you home. I guess."

Latricia brought Grace to and from school recently, I had noticed. Everybody had noticed.

Latricia carried Grace's books.

Now that was hard _not_ to notice. In fact, it kinda two-by-foured you in the face, and you'd have to have been hiding under a rock or be my brother _not_ to notice.

"Huh," I said. "Okay."

"'Okay'?" Grace asked, surprised at my easy agreement. Was she expecting a fight? "I mean: great! Thanks!"

She _ran_ off to her locker, stripped and was in the showers before you could say. "Um, what?"

Okay. Why was she thanking me for going over to her ... _'friend's' _house.

Yeah. Latricia. Her ... _'friend.'_

Whatever. To each her own.

_This was going to be an interesting night,_ I thought, as I prepared, myself, for the shower.

I was shy of my body, not that I was too big, or too little, too fair or too plain, or too anything. I was ... nothing, really, just average. The 'girl next door' look? That was me. A brunette, as plain and ordinary as you could get, with one exception, my family has hazel eyes, but I got lucky: my eyes are sea green. I was Daddy's little girl for a while with them, when he was home. People tell me they look into my eyes and get lost in them. I mean, I have people come up to me and say, 'Wow! You have beautiful eyes!' and they're staring right into my eyes as they're saying this, like they were the only thing they saw, they only thing that mattered to them, but ...

But that's one of the reasons why I was glad to be in the cheerleader squad, too. I mean, Grace was taller than me, and elfin, living up to her namesake, _graceful,_ lithe, but girls were always comparing themselves to each other, some had bigger boobs, some had bigger butts, some had longer hair, or straighter, or redder (or _way_ redder! Case in point: Julie), or whatever, and a thing I envied in another girl, that very thing that girl hated in herself. Nobody was perfect, even if they were thought super-pretty.

A girl could really hate herself, hate her body, just because she wanted to, but ...

But I could _so_ easily fall into that trap. Grace was _so_ beautiful, but she hated the fact that she was Korean, not white, and I was like ... _what?_ She made boys scared of her, she was so pretty, but she just didn't see herself that way, and was shy about herself.

I wasn't a knock-out, I didn't have C-cup boobs, I ...

'I-this,' and 'I-that,' I could like or hate my bits and pieces, the parts that made up my body, and go look for ways to beat myself up, or I could just look at me as just another girl, of about fifty percent of all the people who populated this planet, just another cheerleader, and be fine with it, fine with me.

And I was. I didn't need to stress over my body, like a lot of people did, I had what I had, I tried to make what I had, better, sure, but otherwise...

Otherwise, _eh, _what's the point of wasting time and energy over something in me that wasn't going to change? I was cute, I wasn't all that tall, or have smoldering eyes, or whatever, but I was fine with that. And being in the cheerleaders did that for me, I was shy of myself, but I had to just get over me, get on the court or the field, do my thing with the other girls, head to the locker room, then strip, get in the shower, and go home after smiling and saying 'goodnight' to the other girls, my teammates. They didn't care if I were shy, they had to shower, too, or stink to high hell, so it wasn't that they didn't care, really, it was just that we all had to do what we had to do, and there was no time for nerving about me-me-me when you're on a team.

I hopped in a shower, not too near Grace, I hoped. I didn't want to appear too eager, you know: the _I-so-excited-I-could-wet-myself_ look, but I didn't want to be aloof or ungrateful. It was a balancing act, and you had to get it just right to be cool.

The thing with Grace, though? She was totally not being cool. She tried to ignore me, like I didn't exist, and she cringed into herself, like she wanted to pretend that _she_ didn't exist, like she wanted to be washed down the drain like soap-scum.

And I just didn't get that. Why was she shy around me?

Latricia came into the locker room. You couldn't miss her. She was the only girl on the football team, and you had to kinda look to know she was a girl, even, because that girl was _built! _and under all that padding, she looked like one of the guys, one of the badass guys. When you did look, it was obvious, but if you didn't ...

She was some heavy firepower on the AHS football team, I tell you what. Girl, no girl, the guys on our team were glad she was on _our_ team, and not the other High school teams we played against.

She threw her helmet onto the floor and stripped off her uniform with tired, efficient moves, throwing her pads and shit onto the locker room floor in a big, sweaty pile.

She almost staggered into the showers, grabbing a stall between me and Grace and turning the water on warm and full blast.

She hung onto the overhead shower nozzle like it was the only thing keeping her standing, and she soaked up the water in silence for a while.

If Grace were quiet and scared before, she was now ... preternaturally calm, washing herself with automatic movements, not saying a word, not even _thinking_ a thought.

Latricia heaved a huge sigh. "Fuck!" she barked through a tired yawn, causing Grace to flinch. Latricia stretched, owning her spot, then observed: "Practice today was a _bitch."_

She was quiet for a while more, just hanging there, her head resting against the wall. Then she said quietly to Grace. "What did she say?"

"Yes," Grace said. "She said, 'yes.'"

Latricia was quiet for a bit more, then she opened one eye, scrutinizing me. "Good," she said, finally, and added: "Cool."

Latricia gave herself the once-over with the soap and was done with her shower just like that.

"Well," she said addressing Grace curtly, "don't take all day," grabbed her towel and headed to her locker.

"O-okay," Grace said meekly to Latricia's back, and finished up quickly.

...

Latricia drove us home. Grace sat in front. They held hands as Latricia drove.

That was ... okay, I guess. I mean ... I don't know what that was. I guess, you know, boyfriend-girlfriend, you hold hands when you're driving somewhere, so it was natural, I suppose for Grace and Latricia to hold hands, too, right? They were girlfriend-girlfriend, right?

But what seemed different is that they weren't lovey-dovey about it. You know, the _'I love you so much!'-_look that made everybody else want to gag. No, this was, like, Latricia held out her hand, and Grace was expected to put hers into it. And that was that.

We drove to Latricia's place in silence.

Latricia's family wasn't rich, either, it turned out. She drove a beater, and she drove it to the apartments on Little River Turnpike just inside the beltway, right near the Safeway across the only Wendy's in town. The only place the Koreans hadn't gotten to transforming into the shiny, new Little Korea: the Latino part of town.

This looked ... safe.

Yeah.

I scrunched down in the back seat a little bit more.

* * *

**A/N:**

Dear Ms. Muse,

Thank you for giving me so much inspiration recently, and all at once. Thank you for filling my head with these dreams that I just have to write down so I can get banned from ffn and can't even publish on literotica. I really appreciate it.

Yeah.

And I _so love_ that these are all about frosh year of high school, the _worst_ year of my life. I'm really happy about that. What next? Dreams about my first year of college when I got pregnant and then lost my baby, too? That'd be ... _great!_

Anybody know where I can go to get a cheap lobotomy so these dreams can... just... stop?

**ps:** Rebekah in no way, shape, or form resembles me in looks, demeanor, overshadow(..._ment?)_ by a genius brother, or anything.

And I didn't have a Grace in High school, either, so that just proves it, and fml.

I had me a Julie, redheaded, freckled Julie, and she left me to marry Mr. Right.

So there's that, too.

**pps:** And I _so _didn't go to Annandale High School where we had one black girl on our football team who was totally kick-ass, fer realz, and my brother _so_ didn't go to TJ (because he was too _fucking_ good for fucking _TJ._ And, no, I'm not bitter), so there's that, too, as well. So there.

love, `phfina

... **okay**, one more ps:

So, I was tickled pink when I saw that _But I'm a Cheerleader _was a category for me to pick with this story. This story is _not_ a _But I'm a Cheerleader_ story in that it doesn't have the same characters, the same parents, the same scenarios, but it _is_ a _But I'm a Cheerleader _story in that the same kind of self-discovery occurs. These girls don't carry labels on them saying _'I'm a lesbian' _or _'I'm out proud'_ or anything like that. They aren't their labels. They are girls, they are growing, they are finding out about themselves, some things they like, maybe, some things they hate about themselves, for sure, and in others.

Just like in _But I'm a Cheerleader._ Megan wasn't a _'Lesbian'_ at the beginning of the movie. She didn't even know what one was nor even care until she was forced to confront it by her own family. These girls aren't _'Lesbians.'_ They aren't carrying any torches. They are human, so, by definition, they make stupid, conceited mistakes.

_Sounds like anyone you know, `phfina?_

`phfina raises her hand, blushing.

So, _don't_ read this story, expecting anything neat and tidy and labeled here, okay? Don't expect anything, and please don't carry any torches for our girls here.

They have enough burdens, already, just being themselves, and trying to figure out what that is, actually.


	2. So This Is How It Is

**Chapter summary: **I read somewhere that a healthy vagina's pH is between 4 and 4.5; beer's pH is between 4 and 4.4. Coincidence? I think not. WARNING: Domestic violence.

* * *

Latricia opened up the door to her apartment. "Ma!" she shouted, "I'm home!"

I looked at Latricia in confusion. "I though your parents were working late tonight."

Latricia shrugged. "Par_ent._ My mom is a nurse at INOVA Fairfax. She has the night shift, but it doesn't hurt to check."

Latricia entered her house and threw herself down on the couch.

"I'm beat. I wanna beer," she looked at me, "You wanna beer?"

"Uh," I said, but thinking _starting right off?_ Maybe later. "Do you have diet coke?" I asked politely.

"That we got," Latricia responded to me, then turned to Grace. "Grace," she ordered, "two beers and a diet coke for the lady."

Grace bit her lip and ran to the kitchen.

"Wow!" I said, looking after Grace. "You just ... you just told her what to do, and she just ... did it."

"Yeah?" Latricia said indolently and leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes.

Grace ran back into the ... _'living' _room? Well, the room by the entrance that had as its centerpiece the TV. Why do they call the TV room the 'living' room in this country? She was almost jugging the cans, bigger than her tiny hands. She opened a bud for Latricia, spraying herself in her haste to get Latricia her beer, then opened me my diet coke, handing it to me, not looking at me as she did.

"Cheers," Latricia said to Grace.

Grace looked surprised. "Oh!" she said, quickly popping open her own beer and clunking her can against Latricia's.

Latricia threw her beer down, swallowing it in big, thirsty gulps.

Grace took a tiny, teensy little sip. If she had just sniffed it, she probably would have inhaled more alcohol than what she drank in that tiny sip.

She grimaced at the taste as the beer went down.

Latricia crushed her emptied can in her hand and threw it on the ground. She held out her hand for Grace's almost totally untouched beer. You're not, like, supposed to touch other people's drinks, but Grace looked relieved, handing it over.

That didn't last long.

"Go fetch yourself another from the fridge," Latricia looked at me. "You want one now?"

"I'm good," I said, waving my full can of diet coke.

Latricia grunted and waved Grace off who sprinted off to the kitchen to get another beer, scooping up the crusted beer can on the floor as she passed it. Latricia took a swig of what was Grace's beer a second ago. Grace returned.

"'Kay," Latricia said. "You're wasting my mom's money by not finishing your drink, Grace."

Grace blanched.

"So, we're going to have a drinking contest here, you and me, since Becks' not playing. First girl to finish her beer wins. Ready?"

"Uh," Grace started to say.

"Go," Latricia said and started gulping down her beer.

"Uh," Grace said helplessly.

Latricia gulped and gulped, not stopping, so Grace popped open her can hastily and started gulping, too.

Or trying to. What do you call 'sipping out of the top of the very slightly tilted can'?

That's how Grace 'gulped' her beer.

Needless to say, it was no contest.

"_Ahhh!"_ Latricia sighed contently, then belched loudly. "That hit the spot."

She crushed the can and threw it on the ground.

Grace looked forlorn. "I... I didn't finish." She looked down. "You win."

The way Grace said that, it sounded like the end of the world to her.

Latricia smirked. "Lessee," she said, and patted the couch cushion beside her invitingly.

Grace sat carefully next to Latricia. Latricia nodded over to me. "Grab a seat, Becks," she said casually.

I felt awkward, but I didn't know what else to do, so I sat.

I don't know about this 'Becks'-pet name, either.

Latricia took Grace's beer and swirled it around.

She frowned.

"You didn't finish this?" she asked Grace.

Grace shook her head, despondent.

"_Wrong!"_ Latricia said.

Grace blinked.

"You didn't finish this, Gracie," Latricia said, "because you didn't even start it. As always."

She grabbed Grace by the back of her head and yanked, hard.

"_Ahhh!"_ Grace cried out.

Latricia was right at the side of Grace's face. "Now, you finish this beer, and you finish it good," she whispered menacingly. "And don't you dare spill one drop!"

Latricia brought the beer up to Grace's lips and started pouring it right into her mouth, so that Grace had to take big gulps to swallow fast enough not to spill beer out her mouth and all over herself.

"Uh," I offered.

This didn't look right.

Latricia didn't even look at me. "Finish the beer, Gracie," she said as she poured and poured the beer down Grace's throat, emptying the can into Grace's tummy.

The can looked bigger than Grace somehow at this moment, and Grace was suffering, as she tried to drink.

And failed.

Beer overflowed from her mouth, as she couldn't swallow fast enough, and it spilled down her cheeks and splashed onto her blouse, leaving a big, wet trail down her front.

Latricia finished off the can by pouring the rest over Grace's face.

"Told you not to spill!" she said. She shoved Grace away from her, off the couch. Grace, graceful Grace, stumbled, caught herself, and stumbled again, seeking to steady herself by clinging onto the TV stand.

Latricia continued mercilessly. "Let's try this again, and this time, get it right. Get two more beers, _now."_

Grace stumbled from the room, shell-shocked.

I looked at Latricia, shaking my head. Nobody stood up to her. That is, and lived, that I knew of.

"This is wrong," I whispered.

Latricia looked at me contemptuously. "You don't know nothing, kid. You see how Grace is at school? So fucking uptight she fucking can't look at her own God-damn shadow without pissing her pants? She needs two beers in her before she even _starts _to loosen up, but who'd gonna do that for her, 'cept me?"

Grace returned, staggering, almost, and swayed, very slightly in front of Latricia.

"Siddown, Grace," Latricia commanded.

"Uah," Grace gasped.

Negotiating sitting down for Grace this time seemed to require almost more effort, both physically and mentally, than what Grace was capable of.

Latricia grabbed Grace's arm and sped up the whole 'sitting down' process by dispensing with negotiating entirely. Latricia just spun Grace in a one-eighty causing the back of her knees to hit the couch.

Grace collapsed into a very upright seated position, but looking very shocked and confused, her eyes wide, wondering what just happened.

"Now, Grace," Latricia said, not unkindly, relieving her of the beers and placing them on the dilapidated end table, then returned attention to her. "Becks here is concerned."

Grace was the one who looked concerned now. _Very _concerned, like concerning me was a life-or-death proposition.

Latricia continued: "She seems to think that this here little arrangement is wrong, somehow, like maybe I'm forcing you to do this, or something like that. But that's not true, is it?"

Grace's eyes grew round with fear, she shook her head rapidly in denial.

It was like she had just lost the ability to speak, she was that scared.

Latricia pursed her lips. "Yeah, I'm not doing anything you don't want, right?" she said. "You just need to chill the fuck out, and I'm helping you do that, right, Grace?"

Grace gulped, hard, and nodded obediently.

Latricia frowned and shook her head. "Grace, she doesn't believe you. _I_ don't even believe you, and I know. You have to do way better than this."

Grace gasped, "Oh," and looked around helplessly, starting to rise.

Latricia's friendly arm around Grace's shoulder locked her down into place.

"Where're you goin'?" Latricia demanded.

Grace bit her lip. "You said convince her," she whispered, "and ..."

That hit Latricia like a truck hitting her.

I pitied the truck.

"Oh, for God's sake, Grace, _tell_ her it's okay," Latricia snarled, then whispered to herself: _ "Jesus, Grace, you are one dumb shit."_

"Oh," Grace said, embarrassed and ashamed. "Uh," she looked at me, helplessly. "Um, this is ... for my own ... good?"

Latricia rolled her eyes, displeased, and nudged Grace with her body, slightly.

"Uh, I ... want this?" Grace said.

Latricia put her head into her free hand.

"_What?"_ Grace whispered, angry and scared. _"I said what you wanted."_

Latricia sighed and raised her head, looking disappointedly at Grace. "We really have to work on your communication skills," she scolded Grace.

She meant it.

Latricia turned to me. "Grace'sn't all that good at saying things with any ... confidence. It's the whole Korean-thing."

Grace hung her head, shamed.

Latricia nudged Grace affectionately. "We're working on it, tho', huh, kiddo?"

Grace shrugged. She was the image of despair.

Latricia returned her attention to me. "You see how it is. You can't pry her open, even if you tried with a crowbar, but a couple a' beers, and she'll be doing fine, or, much better than she is under the thumb of her parents, anyway. You see how they run her into the ground?"

I shook my head and said, "Not really," not wanting to see Latricia's side. Not wanting to see that she _did_ have a side to this.

I wanted Latricia just to be wrong, just to be the bitch that she was.

Latricia snorted. "Then you must not've seen her with her parents."

That stung. Latricia wasn't blind to human interaction, and she just out-of-hand dismissed me that I was.

She turned back to Grace. "Okay, Gracie, you feeling the beer?"

Grace's eyes shifted to Latricia. "Yeah," she said languidly. Grace's cheeks were flushed.

Latricia chuckled. "Yeah," she said. "So, this time, we drink it down, and you'll feel really good and relaxed, okay, sweetie?"

Grace bit her lip.

Latricia opened her can and Grace's, passing Grace her beer. Grace accepted the beer with two hands, holding it like an egg.

"Okay," Latricia said, "Now, go."

Latricia downed her beer quickly.

I've got to hand it to Grace: she tried. She tilted her head back and took three big gulps, grimacing at the taste, before she had to stop to take a breath of air.

_So this is drinking,_ I thought to myself. It didn't look like fun at all, like I heard it was supposed to be. You were supposed to be cool, drinking. But neither girl looked cool. Grace looked tormented, and Latricia just looked like she were drinking soda, or something: she looked badass, but she always did.

Latricia crushed her empty can in her hand, tossing aside, then looked at Grace.

"Okay, sweetie," she said, "finish it."

Grace looked at her beer with distaste, like a little girl looks when told to eat her vegetables. She made another heroic effort, swallowing another three big gulps ... for her.

She took a break, gasping, looking away from us both.

Latricia waited, but she wasn't the most patient person in the world.

"Grace, ..." she prompted.

Grace bit her lip. She looked at her lap.

"I can't finish it," she whispered.

"What?" Latricia said.

Grace looked up from her lap. "I...I... can't finish it."

Latricia did not look happy. "Oh, yes, you can, Grace."

Grace shook her head, but then her face turned slightly green, and she stuck out her tongue, which was white. "Bleh!" she breathed out. "Trish, I'm gonna be sick. I swear."

Latricia sighed. "Swear to God, Grace," she said disappointed, "you are a lightweight and a half."

Latricia took Grace's can of beer from her, swirled it once, and downed the beer. She crushed the can in her hand, stood, and exited the room, collecting the cans on the floor as she headed back to the kitchen.

"I'll get those," Grace called back weakly, but making no move whatsoever from her slouched position on the couch. In fact, her head lolled back, hitting the wall behind her — _"Uh!"_ she whined faintly — and she closed her eyes, her mouth falling open.

She looked totally relaxed.

"Grace," I said.

One eye slit open, then she closed it again.

"Do you like beer, even?" I asked.

"Bleh!" Grace responded, sticking out her tongue, her face scrunching up with distaste.

I leaned back in my chair, thinking. I didn't get it.

"Then why do you let her make you do this?" I said.

Grace's head tried to loll back more. That didn't work, so, like the leaning tower of Pisa, her head slid slightly to one side.

It seemed too much effort for her to hold her head erect.

"You don't know nothing," she said slowly, pronouncing each word distinctly.

That was all I got from her.

"Trish's right 'bout one thing, tho'" Grace said after a moment. "The beer really does work. I don't care about _an-y-thiinng."_

Grace smiled slightly, an air of laziness spreading through her body.

I felt my eyebrows crease. "Is that why? So you can relax? You like this?"

Her head fell slightly forward. "Nah. 'ctully it's kinda scary, losing control of your body. It's like ..." She searched for words then shrugged. "... scary."

"Then _why ..." _I began.

That's when Latricia reentered the room.

"Hey, hey, Gracie," she said brightly. "Let's get you out of those stinky clothes, huh?"

Latricia turned to me. "You want this?" She offered me a beer.

I shook my head. "No, thanks," and showed my can of soda.

If this were drinking, then _no way_ was I going to do anything like that. I had been curious before, and wanted to be cool, like other kids, who talked about their drinking exploits, but now, seeing it first hand, I was suddenly totally not interested in that whole deal.

Losing control of everything? Scary? Not my bag, thanks.

Latricia shrugged. "Suit yourself." She put the can down on the end table.

I got the feel from me that she disapproved, although she wasn't showing it at all. I wasn't being 'cool,' like her.

Fine by me. I didn't want to be cool like her.

I wondered why Grace did. Why did she drink for Latricia's sake, even though she didn't like it?

Latricia turned back to Grace. "C'mon, Gracie, let's go get you changed," and offered her hand.

"'Kay, fine" Grace said, her head lolling, "you go ahead."

Latricia just stood there for a second, holding out her hand, but when Grace didn't move at all, Latricia chuckled and pulled Grace up by her shoulders.

"_Uhhh! No!"_ whined Grace, _"nwanna go!"_

"C'mon, silly!" Latricia and slung Grace over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"_Nnnn!"_ Grace whined into Latricia's back, "why you always getting me nekkid and sexing me!"

Latricia didn't slow one bit. She carried Grace out of the room as if she weighed nothing. "Didn't ever notice you complainin' 'bout it," she answered wryly.

"_Nnn!"_ Grace complained weakly.

It sounded like that was her best effort at a protest.

This was a total train-wreck, but it was no fun to watch.

"I'll just let myself out," I called out.

That stopped Latricia.

"Huh?" she said, turned and glared at me.

"_Hey!"_ Grace complained to no one in particular about I don't know what.

"I'll just let myself out," I said, standing, putting my coke down. "You two can ... _hm__m..." _I stopped, wondering how I could put this diplomatically. "Do whatever you guys want. I don't know why you asked me over, but I'll just ..."

"I didn't ask you over," Latricia interrupted. "Grace did."

"Because you told her to," I said, stating the obvious.

Latricia looked shocked. _"No!"_ she said angrily. "Grace asked you over because ..."

She stopped, looking at me thoughtfully.

"Because why?" I demanded. Then I grimaced, biting my tongue.

Why did I just ask that? I don't care why Grace asked me over. I don't even know her, so why should I care?

Latricia frowned at me. "Look," she said. "Wait just a sec. I'll have Gracie tell you herself, huh?"

"Yeah, whatever," I muttered angrily, looking away from the train wreck.

Latricia glared at me hard for a second, and turned and left, stomping away with Grace over her shoulder.

"_Hey!"_ Grace complained again faintly, and they were gone.

...

This was my shot. The door was there. I was there. It was about a 3-4 mile walk home. The neighborhood was a little rough, but I could just hit route 236 and jog home, and I'd be out of this mess.

All I had to do was walk to their front door, open it and leave.

That's all I had to do to get out of this mess.

...

"So," Latricia said businessline, sitting across from me, her arm wrapped around a quiet, docile Grace.

I sat across from them, stewing, hating myself and my gutless, morbid curiosity.

Curiosity killed the Becca.

"Grace wanted to tell you why she invited you over, right Grace?" Latricia demanded.

Grace looked exactly like a person who wanted to do anything but that and be anywhere but here.

I should have left when I had the chance.

But you can't fault Latricia's expediency, nor her reentrant flair: she had brought Grace in, redressed.

Grace wore a pink girl's half-tee with a "Cray Cray for PB and J" stenciled in big, bold yellows. She had worn her bra after she showered, but she _obviously _wasn't wearing it now. Of course the beer soaked it through when it spilled down her chest, but I knew that wasn't the reason why Latricia removed it for Grace, and it wasn't out of kindness and consideration to her.

Grace wore a girl's micro mini. I think I've seen bigger sweat bands.

When Latricia sat Grace down, her legs, akimbo, showed me what Grace _wasn't_ wearing down there.

I saw London, I saw France.

I didn't see any underpants.

Grace liked to keep her peach baby-smooth, I had noticed before Grace quickly crossed her legs, only making her situation worse as her nonexistent skirt hitched up even more.

Did it provide any kind of covering?

No. It most definitely did not.

"Grace?" Latricia pressed.

Grace looked away, blushing.

Latricia smiled a lopsided, sardonic smile.

"You're tense," Latricia observed. "We're all tense. Why don't you do what you do, and I'll do the explaining, huh?"

Latricia didn't wait for an answer. She shoved Grace off the couch at her feet.

Grace, crestfallen, put her hands to Latricia's calf and started massaging, gently.

Latricia returned her attention to me. "As you can see," she said, "Grace is my little bitch. She can't do or say anything by herself, she always has to have someone telling her what to do, or she can't function. Her parents did that to her her whole life, but she could never be good enough for them in anything she did, isn't that right, Gracie?"

Grace bowed her head, ashamed, and just kept working on Latricia's leg.

"_Hey!"_ Latricia shouted. "I _asked _you a question, _bitch!"_

"Yes," Grace whispered, but she didn't say it scared; she said it resigned.

"See?" Latricia said, her attention on me again, "she won't do or say anything. It's like pulling teeth sometimes, I swear."

Grace wasn't wearing her sneakers anymore, so her exposed butt-cheeks were resting on her heels as she massaged Latricia's legs.

Latricia's brow clouded. "I thought you Koreans were supposed to be good at massaging. I don't feel a thing, Grace. Aren't you good at anything?"

Grace bit her lip and pressed harder with her hands, which made no impression on Latricia's rock-hard legs that I saw.

"No," she whispered.

"Yeah: no," Latricia sneered cruelly. "You're not good for a single thing! Not good enough for your parents, and nobody'd have you, after what you did. You're _lucky_ I took you on, because I tell you what, Grace, you are a full-time project."

My eyes narrowed to lasers.

_After what Grace had done?_ What had she done? As far I knew she was good on the cheerleading team and good at school. She looked like the kind of kid that would never do anything bad.

The only bad thing I had seen her do was in her choice of a girlfriend, but now I wondered if that were a choice of hers at all, or was that something Latricia had forced on Grace as blackmail for whatever the thing was that Grace had done.

"But enough about you, Grace," Latricia said. "Why don't you tell Becks why you asked her here tonight?"

Grace said nothing. Her long, black hair draped over Latricia's leg, hiding her face from both of us. She just kept working on Latricia's leg.

Latricia smiled. "So," she said to me, supplying the words Grace wouldn't. "Here's what happened, Becks. Gracie and I were lying on the old bed, just looking up at the ceiling, relaxing after I rode her for a particularly good, long fuck, and I said to her: 'So, Gracie, who'd you think is the cutest cheerleader on the team now?' and what does she say, huh?"

I looked down at Grace. "Well, Grace is," I said, ignoring the _'fuck' _comment, pretending like I didn't hear it. It was way too TMI, or Latricia was baiting me, as she did with her _'Becks' _pet-name, or both. So I just ignored it.

I didn't ignore that Grace was 'cute.' _'Hot'_ was more like it, and even _'smokin'! _if you got right down to it.

That one was obvious.

"_HA!" _Latricia barked so loudly my diet coke can almost shook on the end table. "You hear that, Gracie? I toldja!"

She shoved Grace with her leg to emphasize her point.

Latricia chuckled. "Nah!" she answered me. "Do you see Gracie saying, _'Duh, well, yeah, I'm the cutest!'?_ If she said that, I think her intestines would strangle her to spare her the mortification." Latricia shook her head, still chuckling. "No, Miss Coy, she said _you _were the cutest."

Latricia nodded at me like she were saying: _'props to you!'_

"And I said," she continued. "I said, 'Yeah, I think you're right there, Gracie-poo.' And I said to her, 'You want to get you a piece o' dat?' and she was like, _'Hells, yeah! _That'd be_ sweet!'_ So ..."

Grace was violently shaking her head _no!_ freeing her hair, and there was terror in her eye.

I had to agree with Grace on that. Like she would ever say anything like that! Like she would even _think _that!

And me? A sweet piece? As if! If Grace had said, 'Hey, sweetie pie! I want me a piece of you!' I mean she would never say anything like _that,_ but _if_ she did, like, _in her life!_ I'd look to my left and my right to see who she was talking about, because it wouldn't be about me.

Annandale cheerleaders weren't the Dallas Cowgirls, but there was sweetness left, right, and center. The girls were sweet at AHS, _way_ sweeter than me!

Not that I was looking at all, but you get my drift.

"I didn't say that," Grace whispered to Latricia's leg.

"Huh?" Latricia demanded. "What was that?"

Grace bit her lip. "I didn't say that," she said just as softly.

Grace was both scared but unrepentant, she was cowed, but she didn't back down.

Latricia smiled, faintly. It wasn't a pleasant smile.

"Grace," she commanded, "c'mer."

Grace stopped massaging Latricia's leg and sat beside her. Grace's eyes were firmly fixed on her own lap.

"Grace," Latricia's voice was calm and cool. "When I asked you who was the cutest, nicest cheerleader on the squad, what name did you say? Did you say Becca's name?"

"Yes, but ..." Grace said quickly.

"And haven't you been checking her out in the locker room all semester?" Latricia probed.

My eyes widened, and I looked at Grace to see what she said.

"No!" Grace said. "I have not! I have not at all!"

"Don't lie, Grace," Latricia warned.

"I'm not!" Grace said hotly.

"So you haven't checked out Becca, not once at all in the locker room, in the showers, when you've been practicing, not at all. Tell me the truth."

Grace's face was beat red. "I ... haven't!" she stuttered. "Really, I haven't! I swear!"

Latricia snorted. "Liar," she accused, but mildly. "You so want a piece of that sweet, little Becks, don't lie!"

"I ..." Grace was trying to twist her fingers into pretzels, "I didn't say that. I swear to God, I didn't say that!"

"Gracie," Latricia gave Grace an affectionate squeeze, "I didn't say what you _said, _I said what you _wanted."_

Grace was quiet when she said, "That's not what I said."

Latricia snickered, reading her victory in Grace's defeated face. "So if you and Becky were in bed together, here, right now, you'd throw her off the bed and tell her to get the fuck out, is that what you're saying?"

Grace's eyes never left her lap, she hugged herself, and her throat was working, like she was trying to say something, but not knowing what to say, or trying not to say anything, but knowing she had to say something to defend herself or rescue herself from this embarrassment.

But nothing came out.

Latricia's smile was pure evil now. She turned her head to Grace and nuzzled Grace's hair and ear with her nose, breathing softly, hotly on Grace's neck.

"Or," she whispered softly into Grace's ear, "don't tell me you wouldn't keep her in the bed, and lick her sweet, little pussy. Don't tell me you don't want to hold her in your arms and taste her sweet muskiness, Gracie."

Grace wouldn't look at me, she was trying to pull her fingers off her hands and panting hard, red-faced, ashamed.

Latricia blew softly into Grace's ear, and Grace shuddered.

Latricia returned her attention to me. "So here's your shot," she said.

"For what?" I said, not liking this at all.

Latricia snorted. _"Duh!" _she said, "you'n Grace. I can bring her back to my bedroom, and she will do anything you want her to. She'll lick your pussy. She's not really good at it at all," she gave Grace a shake, "but she's a fast learner and has lots of practice since I took her under my wing, and with proper motivation, she can apply herself pretty well once she gets going."

"No," I said.

Latricia looked surprised.

Then she laughed. "Ha!" she barked, "don't tell me you don't want Gracie's head between your legs licking your cunt. You can fuck her afterwards, or ... I don't know, she can try to fuck you, but she really sucks at giving, you know? But she sure can take it a lot."

Latricia smirked, "Yeah, long and hard, right, Gracie? You like it long and hard, doncha!"

Grace didn't answer.

Latricia snorted.

"No," I said, "I don't want that. I want to go home now."

Latricia looked at me like I was from another planet. "What? Nobody'll know. What do you want? You want her to beg? I can make her beg. I can make her beg really good for you."

Grace looked at the floor, the image of defeat.

I shook my head and stood. I've seen enough. "I'm not playing your game anymore. Take me home now."

Latricia's face darkened, her eyes narrowed. "Take yourself home."

"What?" I said.

"You heard me," she said angrily.

"You brought me here," I said, angry myself. "You _have _to bring me home."

That's like a rule.

"I don' have to do shit for you, little girl," Latricia said, unmoved. "I got things to do here, so you can tit the fuck out the door yourself."

"Fine," I snapped. "Whatever."

I turned and stormed out.

But not before I saw Latricia grab Grace by the back of the head.

Grace whined in shock and in pain: _"Unh!"_

"This so didn't go the way I wanted, bitch, and you know who's fault that is?" Latricia snarled.

"No!" Grace whined. "Please!"

I slammed the door as I left.

I was furious. Weird fucking fucked-up fuckers and their psycho shit-games! Fucking ...

Fucking ...

Fucking ... I thought as I stormed down the hall.

But my furious thoughts didn't block out the sound of Latricia laying into Grace, I mean, like, a seriously hard beating.

And Grace whining, and crying, and begging, begging Latricia so hard to stop.

But Latricia didn't stop. The loud sound of slapping just kept following me down the hallway as a walked, then ran out of it, down the stairway and out the apartment door.

I whipped out my phone, angrily, and two tears splattered onto it.

Fucking ... fucking fuck.

No.

I put my phone away. It could be traced. I ran to the bus stop.

Don't they have payphones anymore? Fucking smartphone have gotten rid of payphones? For real?

I looked across the street at the Wendy's. 7-11 was all the way at the end of the block across the street. There'd maybe be a pay phone there.

But, shit! 7-11? That was so totally hangout for ... 'undocumented workers.' Yeah. That was safe for a white girl. _And _that was going away from home, not toward it. East on 236 there was a lot more openness. There was the carwash and the upscale _Le Matin de Paris, _a Korean coffee shop/bakery.

I turned that way and started jogging quickly, looking for a pay phone.

...

"911 emergency response, what is the nature of your emergency?"

"Please," I said, "there's a girl being beaten up really bad on the second floor of the ... shoot, I don't know the name of the apartments, but it's across the Wendy's on 236 just inside the Beltway. Do you know where I'm talking about?"

"In Alexandria or Annandale, miss?" the operator asked.

Oh. Yeah. The Beltway was a big circle and 236 crossed it in two place.

"Annandale!" I said, "Please, just hurry!"

"We're sending a dispatch right now, miss; may I have your name?"

"Jane Doe," I said, hung up quickly and ran for home.

Fuck me if I got involved in this shit. My dad was in litigation, but I knew enough about criminal law to know that I did not want to spend all night at a police station giving my statement and have Latricia see me there when they dragged her ass in.

I did not want to deal with her connecting the dots when this shit went down.

...

"Where the hell have ..."

Da5id met me in the hallway outside his room. It's a miracle he heard me; he always had his headphones on, playing games on the XBox.

He stopped cold when he actually did see me, though.

He looked at me, puzzled. "What happened?"

Da5id's face was filled with concern.

He took his role of big brother way too seriously.

That is, whenever he decided to come out of his room, which was never. I don't even know I have an older brother sometimes. Breakfast? Supper?

We never sat down as a family anymore, and bb just disappeared into his computers or games, and that was that: his game first, and if you interrupted him while he was playing, he got righteous on your shit.

Dweeb.

But what to say? Even _I _wouldn't believe what I've just been through.

"Met some friends," I said curtly, trying to push past him.

"And ... what? You went jogging?" he said.

My face was flushed, and I was sweating.

"Yeah," I said, which was actually true: I had been running full-on to get home before it got dark.

"After school? After ... practice?" he asked.

He said 'practice' like he didn't know what practice, which was a lie. I wondered if he could say the word 'cheerleader' without his face breaking out into his signature sardonic smirk, like he was so superior, and I was so ... just ...

Just his stupid, little sister, not worth his time.

I wondered if he could do that.

"Yeah," I said, but my face said: _drop it._

"Whatever," he said, getting the hint.

For once in his life.

"Mom was asking where you were," he announced, annoyed.

"She's home?" I was surprised at this. Mom was never home. Days, nights and weekends: doctors give their lives to their work, and then they die.

So it goes.

"Nah," he said, "she called."

"What did she want?" I said. _And why the hell was Da5id bugging me? _I wondered angrily.

Da5id just stood there, looking at me. "How the hell am I supposed to know that?" he demanded with his whiny voice and his all scrunched up pissed-off face.

"Okay," I said, so done with this and him, "whatever."

I pushed past him.

"Hey," he shouted to my back which tensed right up at his righteous tone. "Next time you come home late from school, you call me, or something!"

I turned on him, livid. "Who the _fuck_ do you think you are to tell me what to do!" I screamed right in his face.

He stood there, stunned.

I turned and went to my room, slamming the door.

I threw my backpack on my bed and stripped. I needed to shower, again, badly.

And maybe I just should have drunk that beer, after all.

Fucking hell of a day.

* * *

**A/N:** Don't worry, my lovelies, it gets worse for Becca.

A whole lot worse.

No.

Wait.

That's not very encouraging, is it?

Quote in the summary is informed by Christina Harding on twitter at-TinaErotica.

Not that I ... go looking for information like that. At all. Ever.

Really.

But I do know why the Vikings gave blushing brides lots and lots of mead for their wedding night. Those big, tall, muscular Vikingescque Vikings. Ooh! History Channel flash!


	3. An American Girl

**Chapter Summary:** But that's what you come to America for, right? To be an American, right? Isn't that the pinnacle? I mean, people literally die to get to this country. So why wouldn't you be happy that your mother thinks you're American? Isn't that what she wanted you to be? Am I right?

* * *

Last night I had the strangest dream.

No, I didn't fall away to China, but maybe I did.

Do you know how you're aware of yourself in your dream, but you're like ... it's like your body isn't there.

It's like you're looking through your own eyes, but you're not you, right? Do you know what I mean? I mean, like, I was separate from my body, but I was totally tied into my body, like it was a shell, holding me inside it.

And I was standing there ... wherever 'there' was.

Because 'there' wasn't important, it was all faded and sepia, just ... _there, _but who cared?

And Grace was standing right there.

That's what was important, because everything else in the world was fuzzy, but Grace was in sharp focus, and she was about an arm's length from me, and she was looking right at me, and she was smiling softly and sweetly.

And her hands were resting on my shoulders.

And you know how people look right into my eyes? It's really annoying sometimes, because it's like, okay, whatever, so I have beautiful eyes, but, _hello!_ _person here!_ But, no, people just stare into my eyes and tell me how pretty my eyes are, like they have a right to stare.

I'd like someone just once to shift their focus down to my chest and stare at my boobs, just once, so at least I could feel degraded and objectified for a different body part, for G-d's sake!

Oh. I'm a Jew. You don't say 'G-d,' in case you were wondering about that. We're liberal about most everything else but that.

Our family doesn't even believe in G-d, not one of us, as far as I can tell.

But you can't be cavalier about this stuff. Tons of people didn't believe in G-d... hasn't stopped Him from wiping out entire races throughout history, ours included, over and over again.

When G-d said to Abraham, 'You will be my chosen people,' the joke is, Abraham responded: 'Oy-vey!' because we've been in a world of hurt ever since that day.

Of course, that's a joke, because if Abraham _did_ say that, G-d would've just wiped him out and found somebody else to pick on for the rest of history.

I envy Christians. They have Jesus, the most successful Jew, like, _ever,_ but he's like _so nice_ to them. Why did we get the short end of the stick? We were here first!

But my dream didn't have G-d nor Jesus. My dream had Grace.

And she was standing there, smiling at me sweetly, her hands on my shoulders, and I was looking into the two black pools that were her eyes, but she wasn't looking into my sea green eyes, my blessing and my curse, no, she was looking right into me.

Do you understand? Grace did. She knew my body was just a shell. She even knew I was looking through my eyes. But she saw me, and was looking at me, and she was smiling.

And ...

And that's when I woke up, my body was all tingly, like I had just been in a fight, or like I needed to punch somebody, badly, like my brother.

Really, really hard.

And I was lying on my little bed in my little room, confused and angry, because ...

Because, okay, _why!_ Why did I have that _stupid _dream? It's not like Grace Park meant anything to me. It's not like I would care what she thought about me.

It's not like I was ever noticed, just for myself.

It's not like anybody had ever seen into me, and liked what they saw.

Besides, Grace didn't actually look into me at all, anyway. It was just a stupid, fucking dream, and that's all it was.

I crawled out of bed, tired from my dream, and that just made me all the more pissed off.

Oh. And I had my period. Great.

...

Grace wasn't in school today.

That ticked me off.

Little things annoyed me more. Some girls sail through their periods, and my hat's off to them. Me, my period and I, since we've been introduced to each other before my bat mitzvah, have had a long-standing relationship, where I tried to ignore her, the bitch, and she did everything in her power to get my attention. By now it was like we were an old-married couple, tolerating each other as best as we could.

Didn't make 'sailing' through my day at school any easier.

I saw Latricia at lunch. She was hanging out with her football buddies, as usual. Grace wasn't hanging with her. That was unusual. Maybe Grace told Latricia to tit the fuck out the door herself and not come back.

But I didn't see that conversation happening. Not in this lifetime.

I wondered if Latricia had actually killed Grace and had taken a drive down 95 South and had dumped her body in the forest off one of those lonely exits down South.

I wondered if anybody would notice? Or if coach would just look for another good flyer to replace her?

I was going to see if I could intercept Latricia and ask her about Grace. Not that I was worried about her, or anything like that; I just wanted to know.

But Latricia intercepted me, right outside the lunchroom as I was headed to math class, the dreaded math class where the teacher was more in love with my brother and wanted to know how he was doing at TJ than he was interested in teaching he G-d-damn class.

Fucking embarrassing, to be asked in front of everybody how my brother's doing.

He's doing just great, okay? Thanks for asking.

Latricia came right up to me at my locker right after lunch, I could feel her, hell, everybody could feel her, because she made waves through the other students as she plowed through them, careless of them and their space.

Latricia nodded to me in greeting. "You call the cops?"

She asked that matter-of-factly, like she didn't care either way.

But then again, she probably wouldn't care either way crushing my head against the cinderblock walls.

I looked up at her. "Don't know what you're talking about," I said curtly.

Latricia snorted. "Yeah, whatever. It's not like they're there every day, twice a day. Routine for them with their, 'Excuse me, miss, there's been a report of a disturbance ...'"

Latricia almost filled the hallway with her confident presence. "No big deal for them, no big deal for me, 'cause I've lived with the cops coming by to our apartment complex every day, sirens blaring and lights flashing, for years and years and years. But for Gracie ..."

Latricia paused and looked thoughtful. "Grace is scared to death of the cops, and what do you think her parents would do if they found out they had to file a report at the police station about their daughter they had just picked up there? Did you think about that?"

I didn't think about that, actually.

I glared at her. "Latricia, I told you I don't know what you're talking about, and this is _so_ not my problem!"

Somebody want to beat somebody up, that's _their _problem.

Latricia looked at me in contempt. "You're exactly right. Grace is not your problem. Whether she lives or dies or spends the rest of her life in misery under the thumb of her parents or some jerk they pick that she has to marry ..."

"Or you," I said.

Latricia nodded. "Or me, too, yeah, it's so not your problem, 'cause you're just like everybody else. Stuck-up, self-centered, conceited, ..."

"_Oh!" _I shouted. _"Look who's talking!"_

The _nerve_ of this bitch, I swear!

Latricia smirked a lopsided grin at me, looking so G-d-damn superior for some reason.

"Yeah," she said, "you didn't call the cops. Why would you? You don't care."

She turned from me, contemptuous.

"Latricia ..." I called.

She stopped.

"Where is Grace?" I asked.

Latricia turned back and regarded me. "Huh?"

"What happened to her?" I said.

"What does it matter to you?" Latricia demanded coldly.

"Well," I said, looking away, "is she in jail, or ... or something?"

Or hurt. Or dead.

"Why would she be in jail?" Latricia demanded.

I felt myself blushing, "'Cause you said the cops came," I said, covering myself quickly, but then I pushed: "You're in school, she's not ..."

My voice just faded away.

Latricia regarded me for a second. "As far as the cops know, it was just me at home. They came to investigate a disturbance, there was no disturbance, you see: Grace was ... asleep, yeah: 'asleep' in the bedroom when the cops came, so they came, they asked me a few questions at the door, I answered them, they went away. End of story."

End of Grace's story?

"So why isn't she in school today?" I asked.

"Grace is ..." Latricia paused, thinking, then said: "When I took Grace home last night, she wasn't feeling so hot."

Latricia looked thoughtful for a second, then smirked. "Her ass was hot, though, on fire, in fact. She could barely walk. I offered to carry her, but she said 'no.' See, she'd have to explain me to her parents. Her parent are old-school Koreans, and one thing I've learned is that the Koreans hate two things more than anything: gays and niggers."

Latricia cocked her head. "There is no explanation for me. Grace told me that when that K-pop star came out to her own mother, Grace's mom said to a friend that she would bite her own tongue off if she found out her daughter was gay, so ..."

Latricia shrugged. "That," she concluded.

"Grace was in enough trouble already, coming home late, ... and for other reasons," she continued. "I was pleasantly surprised she could walk from the side of the road to her place, but I don't think her parents were too pleased to see her last night, not that they would do anything, but ..."

Latricia looked at me. "I don't think Grace will be coming to class today," she said. "I don't think she's up for it, you know?"

I stood there, staring at Latricia, furious. "You ..."

Latricia chuckled. "So now that you know, you happy? What are you going to do about it little girl? Nothing? Call the cops? 'Cause that worked so well."

Latricia looked me up and down and then she just left.

The message was clear: this was how much impact I had in all of this.

None at all.

...

Grace didn't show up for school the next day, either. Was she at home? Latricia said she was at home, but did that mean she was at home?

People just believe what other people tell them.

I was starting to get worried.

No, I was way passed worried now.

Our center flyer? Missing two days of practice? This was not good.

That's the reason for my worry, you see.

Yeah. Just that. No other reason.

Well, that's what I told myself, anyway.

Not that it mattered to me, but ...

Shit.

How the hell was I going to find out if she were home or in a ditch or ... fuck, I don't know ... held captive at Latricia's house? Or headed to prison, framed with some henious crime Latricia concocted at the last second before the police showed up.

I could just see Grace, pumped full of drugs, or whatever, and the police busting down the door, saving her life, but just so that she could spend the rest of her life in prison!

Whew! Where'd that one come from?

Well, I wasn't going to Latricia's place to spy on her to see if Grace were there. I mean, you see all these movies with people spying on each other, but in real life, how do you do that and not get caught, and, more importantly, not look like a completely clueless idiot when you're found out.

So that was a no-go.

But, ... show up at the Park's place? And say what precisely? _'Uh, hi! You don't know me, but ...' SLAM!_ would go the door in my face, ... if they even opened it for me.

How to get to them opening their door?

I wish I had Grace's phone number.

Do you know how many Parks there are in Annandale? I do now, and not one of them have 'This is the family with the high school senior Grace Park' as a listing.

So I don't have Grace's number, and I'm not some super sleuth Lois Lane investigative reporter that can just find out by asking straight up, because, unlike the movies, people tell you what they tell you, not what's really real.

This was real life, not the movies, where answers were just given to you because you wanted them.

Then it hit me.

I knew how to get into Grace's house. Or at least talking face-to-face with somebody in their family.

Why didn't I think of this earlier today? Why didn't I think of this yesterday?

I had my work cut out for me, and I had only two periods left to do it.

Not _my_ two periods. The one period was more than enough for me now, thanks. Two more _classes_ in school, okay?

I was pleased with myself and my mission, and pissed off at my discomfort at the same time. It'd be funny, if it so weren't.

...

"Anybody know what's the deal with Grace?"

Jennifer, the cheerleading team captain, said this, and she did not look pleased.

"Uh," I volunteered, and all eyes turned to me. "I think she's, like, really sick, or something..."

Jennifer frowned. "Sick. Fine, but she's supposed to let coach or me know. I mean, the hell? How are we going to practice this next set without her again?"

Why was Jennifer giving me shit about this? I didn't own Grace. I was just owning up _for_ her. Don't shoot the messenger and all that.

"I think," I offered, "she'll be at practice tomorrow, I think."

Jennifer glared. "You 'think.'"

The. Hell.

Seriously.

"Yeah," I said, glaring right back.

"Well," Jennifer warned, "she doesn't show up tomorrow, someone else will have to take center."

I didn't answer that.

I didn't answer: _'What the hell does telling me Grace's problems have anything to do with me?'_

I didn't say that, because I don't think that would help anybody's attitude now.

I just shouldn't have said anything, and just let everybody on the team wonder, and just have her slot filled with somebody else. Besides, how could I say she'd be here tomorrow?

So I just didn't say a word: I just ate each word I didn't say back to Jennifer.

Each one of those words tasted exactly like acid reflux.

And I was not going to have ulcers like my dad, no fucking way, Grace Park; you hear me?

So we did the routine, again, without out center flyer.

Again.

It was spectacularly underwhelming.

I didn't see Latricia in the locker room, but we had cut out early because you can only _not_ practice so much at practice, you know? The footballers were all doing their ... badass footballing stuff, whatever that was. It looked like a lot of butt-patting to me, but it so wasn't gay. A girl hugs a girl in gymnastics or after a great cheer, and they're lezzing it up, but a guy pats a guy on the butt or jumps up and chest bumps him on the football field, and that's perfectly fine and manly. Ever notice that?

I wonder what would happen to the guy who patted Latricia on the butt after she flattened yet another linebacker?

I have to pay more attention to football games from now on.

They do call it a 'full-contact' sport, after all.

...

I knocked on the door, hoping to G-d this was the right Park house.

"Hello," I called out to the sullenly silent door, "is this Grace Park's house?"

I knocked again.

_La-la-la, _I projected sweet innocence, _I'm just a sweet and cute cheerleader, totally harmless, open the door, la-la-la, pretty please with sugar on top, la-la-la, open ... the FUCKING ... DOOR!_

Okay, so maybe I wasn't projecting as sweet and cute as I could possibly do, but one thing you don't do is stonewall a Jew.

We are some persistent-assed motherfuckers, that get just _mean_ the longer you give us the brush off.

_La-la-la, sweet and cute, sweet and cute. OPEN THE G-D-DAMN DOOR!_

_Sweet and cute, la-la-la!_

"Hey!" I shouted, dropping the not-working _sweet-n-cute_ façade, "is Grace there, or what?"

The chain-locked door opened a crack wide enough to permit a wizened eyeball to regard me with deep suspicion, like I was some teenaged cheerleader zombie serial killer or something.

I have a question: how come horror movies involved cheerleaders as the monsters or cheerleaders as the victims these days. It's like: _ooh! cheerleader! Let's play up the stereotype to objectify her __more__!_

Like there hasn't been enough of that these last — what? — three zillion years already?

"You cheerleader!" the small woman behind the door shouted.

Hm. How to answer that? _'Oh, really? I didn't know that! Thanks for telling me! Did my uniform give me away? And I so thought I was going undercover with the "but I'm not a cheerleader"-look!'_

No, I don't think that'd be the good first impression to get me in the door.

I went for ditz, ... after all, I _am_ a cheerleader, as was just pointed out to me.

"Yes!" I enthused.

The woman regarded me suspiciously.

Okay, just from this woman's look, I knew I was sailing into majorly troubled waters here.

See, Grace is beautiful.

This woman is ... okay, no other word for it: ugly. Her hair was short and permed in the most unflattering way possible, Grace's skin was a smooth, creamy latte, this woman's face was a weather-beaten mahogany. Grace's voice was mellifluous, you know: honeyed, sweet, not appeasing, but consoling and agreeable.

This woman's voice was like listening to a bulldozer knocking over a foghorn and then mixing that with fingernails and chalk screeching over a chalkboard.

You had to take voice-lessons to make your voice sound that _bad!_ I swear to G-d.

She couldn't be related to Grace. She didn't look one thing like Grace, not on the outside and not on the inside.

Nothing as nice as Grace Park could even live in the same building as this mean old toad, but less be begotten by her.

I'm a Jew: we say 'begotten,' don't you know. It's from the German 'be-gotten,' it means: begotton.

You figure it out. If you can't, take sex-ed again.

"_Grace not come to practice today!" _The woman bellowed.

Okay. Was she hard of hearing? I knew I wasn't.

Was it the ESL-thing?

I hate it when people are like, _'well, if I shout, they'll understand me better.'_

It did, I admit, discourage me saying _'huh?' _and asking her to repeat what she just said.

Her saying it once was torture enough.

I wonder how Grace put up with this every day.

On balance, though, her shouting at me in English was a whole hell lot better than me shouting at her in Korean.

It advanced the convo a whole lot faster, if you get my drift.

And I did know that Grace lived here, after all.

"Yes," I said, stating the obvious, again.

I was good at saying 'yes,' it seems.

"_What you want!"_ she said, apparently done with the preliminaries.

"Well," I said, "is Grace okay? She was missed at practice today ... and yesterday, and ... can I come in and see her?"

The door didn't waver. If anything it became more firmly fixed in its ... not wavering open.

"What for?" the woman asked.

That's when I played my trump card.

"Oh," I said nonchalantly, working hard at keeping my face neutral, "I have her lessons and homework for the last two days, and ..."

The door slammed in my face.

Well, fuck. That worked.

Not.

I heard the chain sliding rapidly, and the door was flung open so fast it hit the wall with a _bang!_

A short, dumpy old woman filled the space where the door was.

"I take that!" she ordered.

"Uh," I said, kind of blown away at how fast she had responded. It kind of knocked me off balance.

"Okay," I said, and shucked off my backpack. I started pulling out the books from her classes. "These books are, like, heavy," I said. And I was speaking the truth there. You walk from school carrying your own books and a senior's full complement of books, well, they're heavy.

That's all I'm saying.

And maybe, like, a 'thank you for your trouble'?

I passed the woman Grace's books and the notes for her homework due.

Did I get a thank you?

_Bam!_ The door slammed in my face.

No, I did not.

"Hey!" I said, shocked.

Now I knew why Grace threw out those random 'hey's at Latricia's place: the world was just zooming by so fast past you all you could get out was a 'hey!' pointing out the injustice, but not getting a chance to address it.

'_Hey!'_ to the slammed-in-my-face closed door, that's all I could say.

I didn't get to say, _'Could you tell Grace that Becca Isaac brought her her stuff?'_ so she would, like, know who brought it, like. I couldn't say, _'Hey, Grace is about to lose her position as the center flyer on the cheerleader team if she doesn't show up tomorrow, so, you know, she'd better show up, and stuff' _I didn't get to say that.

I didn't get to say, well, anything.

All I got to say was _'Hey!'_

Brilliant.

I looked at the closed door.

To that old toad, I was dead and gone, as far as she was concerned.

How to fix this?

I couldn't just knock on the door and say those things now. She didn't let me say them before, she probably wouldn't let me say them now.

And there was the whole language barrier thing? How much would she understand? Probably all of it, I'm guessing. Asians used the language-barrier, I've seen, but I've seen they got way more than they let on, hiding behind their 'I don't understand'-face when they didn't want to answer.

But how much of it would she pass onto Grace?

Probably none of it. I could just see her throwing the books at Grace, shouting: _'You do homework now! Get better! Go to school!'_ and that would be that.

So, leave a note tomorrow for her when I brought her homework around?

No. Too late. I couldn't wait that long. Grace couldn't wait that long, not with Jennifer's threat of replacing her.

I stood at the door, standing there, thinking. You know: looking like a total idiot. Good thing there wasn't like a crowd standing around capturing this for Vine or Youtube: "Idiot AHS Cheerleader stands at neighbor's door like a complete idiot."

Hey, maybe it'd go viral and I'd be, like, famous, like Lindsay Lohan.

Was.

_Think. Think. Think, Becca!_ I thought.

Then it hit me.

I sat quickly by my backpack, grabbed my notebook, and started writing fast and furious 6.

Heh. I'm so funny. I kill myself sometimes.

...

I knocked at the door, firmly this time. "Hey!" I shouted.

I'm good at that. Shouting.

"Hey," I shouted, "it's me again!"

The door opened an angry crack. _"What you want now?"_ the lady said.

The exact same suspicious eye regarded me.

I still haven't ax-murdered anybody since last time she checked, so why was I getting all this hate?

"Hey," I said, breezily, playing up the ditzy-cheerleader role, "I, like, totally forget, she has this, like, book report due tomorrow? Two pages on the _Bell Jar?_ It's like, totally important, so, like, sorry I forgot, but I put the notes in the book, so, like, okay?"

She looked down at the book. It was the _Bell Jar._ She looked back up at me in the eye.

She came to a decision, grabbed the book right out of my hand, and shouted: "You study hard!"

And slammed the door in my face. Again.

"Well," I breathed out. "Okay, then."

I turned and started the long walk to home. Don't mind me, just a girl in a cheerleader uniform, backpack, much lighter now, thank you, walking home, nothing to see here.

...

_Dear Grace,_

I had written in the note, and instantly wondered if I should have written 'dear' or not.

_Hey, it's Becca Isaac._

I wondered if I should introduce myself more than that, like _the girl you asked to ..._

But then I thought: _Nah. She knows._ I continued.

_I went to your AP classes and got your homework assignments and brought them by your place. I know this is important to you: doing well in school. So, I brought it by._

_Also,_ I added, _hey, Jennifer said you need to come to cheerleader practice tomorrow, okay? She said she's going to get somebody else for the center flyer if you don't, and ... I don't know, she didn't say this, but she didn't look happy about you not showing up and not telling anybody, and I don't know what that means, but I really think you should come tomorrow, okay?_

_Becca._

I signed it just _'Becca.'_

You know, on letters that you're always forced to write to your aunts and stuff, you sign it _'Love, Becca.'_

But I thought ...

I thought ...

I don't know what I thought. I just thought I shouldn't write that. That that would be wrong. What if Grace read more into it than me just signing, _'Love, Becca,'_ because that's how you always signed a letter. I mean ...

You know?

So I just signed it 'Becca.' That's all.

Why are you looking at me like that?

...

Day three.

Day fucking three, and no sign of Grace.

Okay, I wasn't worried anymore. After practice, I was gonna call the cops. Again, and fuck my life, but this had gone way past weird. Latricia just walked around like she owned the place, as always, but there wasn't her little Gracie-poo following her around, so a dark cloud hung over Latricia, because, I don't know, because Grace didn't make Latricia smile with her appeasing little antics as Grace scurried along behind Latricia, trying to keep up with the bigger girl's commanding stride?

I don't know why, but Latricia's badassery just went up a notch or two these last few days, which worried me and frankly pissed me off, more than quite a bit.

And I could just see Grace's place as the Bates' hotel, with Grace's mom trying to feed Grace some Korean chap-chae, but Grace not eating because she totally was a corpse, and her mom being mad at her for not doing her homework _because she was dead!_

Jesus-G-d, my imagination was going into overdrive!

I don't know how I made it through the school day. I don't remember eating lunch at the cafeteria. I don't remember classes, even which classes I went to, everything passed in front of me like a haze, like a dream, except I was awake: I was awake in this living nightmare.

...

"Grace! Grace!"

There were happy cries of joy around Grace's locker, and she was basically mobbed by the other cheerleaders. I tried to see her but I was too short and the crowd was too thick, I started trying to worm my way through the other girls to see her, too.

Shawties. We're good at worming.

"Where have you been?"

"We were worried about you!"

"Did you go home to Korea?"

"Don't be stupid, Kay, it takes a whole day to fly to Korea, she'd still be there! Don't you know anything?"

"Well, I was just asking!"

"Grace, what did you do to your hair?"

"It's really ... nice; do you like it?"

I pushed my way through, I swear, it was like being birthed, but I finally got basically shoved up against Grace by the crowd of happy well-wishers.

Grace was blushing hard, smiling demurely, shy and overwhelmed by all the attention.

"Okay, girls, c'mon!" It was Jennifer who shouted this. "We don't have all night, let's go!"

I stared at Grace. Grace saw me, looked at me, and looked away, blushing.

Her ... hair.

It had been chopped. A boy-cut, not even shoulder-length, it curled inward, kissing the nape of her neck.

There was just me and Grace now in the locker room, the other girls had run or had been herded off to practice.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," she whispered, not looking at me.

"Grace, what happened?" I said.

She looked at me, then she looked away.

"You called the cops?" she asked.

"No!" I said.

"Latricia said you called the cops," she accused.

"I didn't," I said quietly.

Grace looked at me then looked away.

"Whatever," she said dejectedly. "The cops came, I guess, I don't know, because I was ..." Grace made a falling gesture with her hand, like a dog dropping to the ground, playing dead, then she tried again, "because she ... because she ... because she ..."

Grace shuddered and sighed. The sigh came right out of her guts, it seemed, and it only left a shell of her behind. She bit her lip and forced herself to continue. "But the cops came. I guess." She shrugged. "I guess that made Trish really angry. I don't know, 'cause when I woke up ..."

She brushed her short hair away from her face, an automatic gesture, and then she shrugged. I saw her hair had been cropped but then had been tidied up, neatly. I wondered: was that afterwards, to make it look boy-cute and pretty? Did her mother soften the harsh chop with a trim here and there?

"I..." she whispered, "I told my mom I was trying a new look. I said, when I got home, 'What do you think, Mommy? Do you think I look cute?' I asked her, just so hoping ... that ..."

She smiled brightly, hopefully at me, like I was her mother, and she was reliving her conversation with me. With her mom. With me.

"And she said ..." she gulped. "She said, 'You look like an _American girl.'"_

Grace spat those words, like she was spitting venom.

"That's when I threw up," she looked at me sadly, then looked away, ashamed.

"I look like ... an _American girl,"_ she whispered.

"I ..." she said, collecting herself, "I gotta get to practice. I'm late."

She smiled apologetically at me. Then she got up, wiped her shining eyes, and ran off to practice.

* * *

**A/N: **So, Becca called the cops, and ... only made things worse? It's just some cropped hair, right? Who cares, right? It's not like Grace has self-esteem issues, anyway, right? Suck it up, Grace, _jeez!_

Okay, I'll turn off my 'I'll pretend I'm tough by being sarcastic' switch and the 'I'll pretend I'm not actually crying at work' switch.

Yeah. I'm crying. At work. Over my stupid sadness on how one little thing can hurt a person so much.

Not that I know this from personal experience. Other things, though ...

Or: I'm surprised Grace didn't kill herself. You know why she didn't?

I do.

She didn't have one second alone. From Latricia to her mom, Grace didn't have the 'space' to be alone and indulge in her own shame and how this one 'little' thing was the end of the world for her.

So, Grace isn't dead. Good on her.

But that's what I do, I get to talking to myself, and telling myself how badly I messed up, and then the downward spiral of self-hate spins out of control, but when I get around other people, later, they're like, they didn't even know what I was talking about or concerned about, or it was just a little, little thing with them, and it's actually okay, and everything's fine now, so don't worry, li'l bit, it's okay.

And they smile at me and my day goes from bleak to hope-filled.

There's a lesson in this for me somewhere, I think.

So, ... but Becca called the cops and only made things worse.

Is the lesson: 'don't call the cops'?

What if she _didn't_ call the cops? What would, or wouldn't, have happened then?

**ps:** The title of this story, _Grace is Gone, _is from a movie where a Daddy is informed his wife died during her deployment to Afghanistan, and now he has to tell his young teen daughters. And he doesn't know how. He doesn't even know how to tell himself this.

**pps:** _An American Girl_ was a TV series starring Margaret Cho about how a KorAm girl struggled with her identity, being an American girl in a family that moved from Korea. I never got to see it; don't know if I was born yet or what. I heard it was really good.


	4. Nice

**Chapter summary: **"The past is the past." But what does that mean when you're haunted by one mistake? _What_ mistake? Grace won't tell me. And her present is Latricia. That girl is living in Hell... At least I got her phone number now. So her future...? I don't know. Why should I care?

* * *

The rest of the week went on without incident. It was like nothing had happened.

Grace followed Latricia as before. Well, not exactly as before, Latricia wore a more pissed-off expression, and Grace's expression was more lifeless, and I think that pissed Latricia off more.

Vicious circle, you know?

And I was different. I noticed that, too.

Before Grace was a non-entity to me, just another Senior, just like Latricia was ... except Latricia was a whole lot bigger non-entity, you know? Not one to piss off, but why would a frosh piss off a Senior? That just didn't compute before so it wasn't a worry for me then.

It wasn't a worry for me now. What was Latricia going to do? Beat me up? And for what? So far as Latricia was concerned, I didn't exist; she just brushed past me as she did before, and Grace ...

Grace wouldn't look at me, but Grace didn't look at anybody. She just followed Latricia around, her eyes on the floor.

I thought they would break up. I mean, Grace didn't look happy, and Latricia didn't look happy, so you know: it made sense for them to go their separate ways.

They didn't.

And that was the difference in me: I was a lot more critical of them both. Every move either girl made, I was, like, instantly aware of it and instantly criticizing it. Latricia was a Grade-A bitch, and Grace was her little whipped bitch, and I hated them both: Latricia for walking all over Grace, and Grace ... for letting her.

Somebody try to walk over me?

I was so pissed at them both, I couldn't put to words what I would do to a person who wanted to do that.

Besides, I'm a Jewish girl. We rule our families, we rule our culture. If you don't believe me, just look. The men act all like: 'we're in charge, we're the law,' but who does everything? Who nags everybody else until she gets her way, and only her way? I'll tell you who: the Jewish moms and aunties and stuff. If some husband were like, 'this is how it is!' laying down the law ... maybe he'd get away with that kind of guff with a blushing bride the first year or so, but as their relationship matured, he'd know what's good for him if he had any sense.

If Mamma ain't happy, _nobody_ happy!

Take me and my brother, for example. He's basically a waste of flesh, useless. I mean, can he do anything, at all? No. He's smart and stuff, but when it comes to life and people? He'd wet his pants if Mom told him to do something involving somebody else's help.

And, oh, my G-d, if he had to invite a girl to a dance?

That'd actually be kind of funny to watch, in a train-wreck kind of way.

I wonder how they're going to get him married off. Of course it'll be to a Jewish girl, so she'll take his whole life in hand as soon as the last 'Mazeltov!' is shouted, but how is anybody going to get a girl to even look at him in the first place?

Step one for you, Da5id: first turn off the computer _and_ the XBox. Second step, come out of your room and go outside. Yes, that bright yellow circle in the sky is called the Sun. Yes, it hurts your eyes when you look at it.

Swear to G-d, my brother is a totally hopeless case!

Me, however: I'm going somewhere with my life, I'm going places and am going to make something of myself.

Don't know what, but I'll figure it out. I'm really good at bossing people around, so, maybe a manager, of, like, programmers. They're all like Da5id, and I basically have to tell him how to tie his own shoes and brush his teeth, so I could get a job telling everybody how to code.

I'd stand over them with a whip. _"If you don't code more, no video games for you after work!" _I'd shout, wickedly reveling in their lamentations of woe.

Yeah. That'd be a good job for me. People like Da5id need bossy people like me or else they just disintegrate into couch-potatoes.

And that's why I was so critical of Grace. I was going places in my life, on top, in charge. Why did she let Latricia walk all over her? She was a woman, okay, an Asian, okay, but she's an American girl. It wasn't like she just walked right off the boat: no, she was born here, I think, or if not, she was like, totally American. You don't walk all over girls in this country. I mean, maybe in the back hills where you marry your cousin and stuff, I don't know, but this was the twenty-first century and the Metropolitan Washington D.C. area. You walk over a girl, she puts on her walking Uggs and walks all over you!

Grace didn't do any walking tall. Around Latricia, she walked small.

And I hated her for it. It was insult to the strides we've made these last centuries. Did she care how what she did made women look like? What if other people, guys, got ideas watching her? Couldn't she stand for herself?

No, she couldn't.

She even let Latricia take away what made her beautiful. She was _stunning_ before, now she was just cute, but she wasn't even that anymore, because the life had gone from her eyes, and looking at her was just painful.

If I had half my mind, I'd go right up to her and tell her to snap out of it.

I didn't have half my mind. I had my whole mind, and my whole mind told me that this wasn't my problem, and the only thing that happened when you got involved with train wrecks was tragedy. Grace did absolutely nothing to defend herself, and that was her problem: that was how she was, there was no fixing her or saving her. Just like Da5id. He was a loser. Grace was a loser of an entirely different magnitude: sweet, smart and pretty, she hid her loserness well, but it was there, and you just can't rescue losers, you just get sucked into their losertude.

Leave well enough alone, my mind told me.

But ...

I was standing right in front of Latricia, Grace cowed behind her.

That's how well I listen: not at all. Nobody tells me what I should or shouldn't do.

Not even me.

"Why did you do it, Latricia?" I demanded angrily, standing tall, like a woman should, every angry inch of me.

At 5'1", I didn't quite reach Latricia's shoulders.

Latricia looked down at me condescendingly. "Do what?" she snorted.

My eyes narrowed to slits.

Here's a true story, bro: there was no snake in the Garden of Eden, there was Eve. She's the one who did it all: took the apple, poisoned it, and gave it to Adam. No snake. Just Eve.

That's exactly how I felt: you mess with me, I'll bring down all of humanity with my poisonous anger.

"You don't toy with _me," _I snarled and poked my finger into Latricia's chest.

I think I hurt my finger.

Latricia chuckled amused at my display. "Ooh!" she murmured appreciatively, but then smiled thoughtfully.

"Do you know why a girl has long hair?" Latricia asked.

"Because she's a girl and she wants to and she's beautiful and _you don't mess with that!"_ I shouted.

Grace had had her hair cropped to a boy-cut, but Latricia's hair was _really_ short, like a military cut. It made her look tough and no-nonsense. She had had her hair like that for as long as I can remember, so we were all used to it. It wasn't unattractive: it didn't even pretend that. It was practical.

"No," Latricia said, "you're missing it. When does a girl get her hair cut short? Every time."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I was just so angry at Latricia for everything, for cutting Grace down so she was nothing now, that I didn't want to engage with her in whatever point she was trying to make.

Latricia shook her head, disappointed with me.

"You asked me a question, I'm giving you an answer," she said forcefully, "and that answer is not just: ''cause I wanted to,' 'cause it was, but it's a whole lot more than that, little girl. You listening?"

I glared at her.

No way was I going to say 'yes, I'm listening attentively,' to Latricia.

Latricia glared at me.

Neither of us gave an inch.

Grace looked between the two of us, back and forth, scared.

Eventually Latricia smirked and nodded her head to me. She seemed pleased.

"A girl cuts her hair," Latricia explained, "every time, after she gets married, and she's sure of her security. 'I got my man now, I don't have to look any more, I don't have to look pretty for anybody else now.' And she cuts her hair."

My mouth fell open. "That is ..." I shook my head. "That is so bullshit!"

"No," Latricia said patiently, "that is so true."

"So, why do you have short hair?" I demanded. "You're not married."

"I don't need to be, either," she said. "I don't need any man to give me security or tell me who I am."

"Oh!" I shouted, "and because I have long hair, I do?"

Latricia just smirked at me, and her smirk said: _yeah, duh._

I hated her with a passion.

"I cut pretty, pretty Grace's hair," Latricia explained to me as if I were a child, "and I cut it nice and short, because she doesn't have to look for anybody else now. She's got me, and that's all she needs."

Latricia let that one sink in for all listeners.

Then she said: "And I left her hair just long enough to do this."

Latricia's hand whipped out and grabbed Grace by the back of the head, with Grace's hair wrapped tightly in Latricia's fist. Grace cried out, shocked, as Latricia dragged her forward between us.

Grace's feet seemed barely to touch the floor.

"... And this," Latricia said evenly.

And she shoved Grace down hard, onto her knees, between us. I heard Grace's knees _crack_ onto the hard stone floor.

"_Owwww!" _Grace whined, shocked and pained.

"_Holy shit!"_

There were bunches of students passing us, either way, on the way to class. That movement stopped. Somebody had shouted that when they saw what Latricia had just done to Grace.

Latricia ignored them. I was aware of them, but they weren't important. Everybody else was nothing to me, even Grace. My eyes, my focus, my fury were all directed right at Latricia.

Latricia took it all, all my anger, and just smiled. "So that's why I cut Grace's hair," she said coolly. She smirked. "Now you know. So I have a question for you, little girl."

"_It's Rebekah Isaac!"_ I hissed at her.

There was no Eve. There was the snake, and _her_ name was Eve.

I know.

Latricia smiled, seeing me exactly for what I was. She had _flattened _boys on the football field, she had flattened Grace right in front of me. Nobody stood up to her, _ever._ Until me. And Latricia loved it. I could see it in her eyes. _Finally,_ her eyes said, _a challenge! A worthy opponent!_

What my eyes said to Latricia?

_Bring... it... on, Bitch._

That's what my eyes said to her.

"Yeah," Latricia said, "that. I answered your question. You answer mine."

I crossed my arms. "Your question?"

"Digits," Latricia ordered. "Not gonna ask you here."

She lifted Grace back up from the floor, grabbing her by the shirt and pulling her up.

I looked Latricia in the eye. "The day you get my number, ..." I shook my head.

Hell freezing over would happen long before that ever happened.

"Give it to Grace, then," Latricia said and shrugged carelessly. She turned, done with the conversation and left the circle of onlookers.

I looked at Grace, glaring. Grace blanched and gulped.

"_C'mon, Grace!"_ Latricia's impatient order cut over the crowd to us.

Grace looked torn between me — was she supposed to get my number? — and from following the imperious call of Latricia.

She ran after Latricia.

"Excuse me."

School security.

Grace froze.

Latricia turned, examining the scene.

The school cop approached Grace, calm, cool, professional. The crowd of students quickly dispersed to their respective classes.

Grace looked like she was going to throw up, she looked so scared.

"Did this student assault you?" the guard asked Grace.

Grace's eyes were round. "N-no," she whispered.

Latricia suppressed a smirk.

The guard turned on Latricia. "I have to ask you to watch your actions: they may be construed as harassment or bullying. This is a warning."

Latricia was taller than the security person. She looked down at him with contempt.

"Let's go, Grace," Latricia said dismissively, "You don't want to be late to class again, do you?"

Latricia took her leave of the scene.

Grace's head fell. "No," she whispered to Latricia's back, and then followed right along, whimpering.

Latricia stopped and turned on her, glaring. Grace just stood there.

"My knees have been through a hell of a lot more than that," Latricia said, "you ever see me cry like a baby over a little bit of pain?"

"No," Grace whispered to the ground.

"Grow up," Latricia fumed. She turn and stalked off. "You big baby."

Grace just stood there for a second, stunned.

If that was a motivational pep-talk from Latricia, it didn't work. Grace's chin quivered, but she squeezed her eyes shut for a second and then ran after Latricia to keep up.

...

Practice: nothing. Grace wouldn't even look at me. She winced through it as best she could, pretending that nothing was wrong. She gave nothing away, and gave it her all.

But everybody could see the bruises on her knees, and every step she took was painful for the rest of us. Nobody said anything.

After practice: nothing.

I kept glaring at Grace, daring her to approach me.

Nothing. If Grace left the locker room, the place would be _less_ empty than it was now, because Grace? There was nothing there. At all. No life in her face, no life in her eyes.

I turned from her to my locker dismissively.

I felt the lightest feather touch on my shoulder.

"You might want to take your hand off me, Grace," I said to my locker, "unless you want it broken."

The tentative touch removed itself from my shoulder.

I got my 'civvies' out my locker and got dressed.

I turned. Grace was still standing there, wrapped in her towel, her eyes were so downcast they looked closed. She was hugging herself, wrapped up in herself, more wrapped up in herself than her towel was wrapped around her, her arms keeping her in her body, it seemed.

She wouldn't say anything.

Just her and me in the locker room. Again.

"What," I said, hating myself for asking, hating myself for not pushing past her.

"Can I have your phone number, please?" she asked so quietly, eyes fixed firmly on the ground.

My jaw worked. But my silence didn't unnerve Grace, she just stood there, waiting, lifeless.

"You going to give it to anybody? Latricia?" I demanded.

Grace shrugged. I knew what that meant.

"Then no," I said.

"Okay," she said, giving up, just like that.

But she didn't move.

"_What!" _I said, losing patience with this dumb Asian shit in my way.

Grace just kept staring at the floor. "Please?" she asked.

"You speaka no Ingrish? What part of 'no' don't you understand?" I snapped.

Grace's expression didn't alter at all.

But my insides were in turmoil. I couldn't believe I just said that.

But I did.

I bit my lip. But I wasn't going to back down now, even to make up for hurting her so badly, like I knew I just did.

"Get out of my face," I snarled.

"Okay," Grace said.

She raised her eyes for a second, and that's when I saw not hurt, but void.

"Can you tell Latricia I'm sorry?" she asked.

My eyes narrowed. "You tell her yourself!" I said, so done with them.

Grace shook her head very slightly. "Not where I'm going."

She raised her eyes to me again. "Good bye, Rebekah Isaac," she said.

Her voice had a ring of finality to it. She turned and went to her locker. Her towel dropped to the floor, revealing the image of perfection, young, thin, the slightest of flare to the hips. Her skin was a smooth, unmarred light, light mocha, her muscles toned.

Grace rested her head on her locker door and mechanically pulled her school things and her clothes out of her locker, carelessly draping her white cotton tee over her shoulder.

I hated to admit this: I admired Grace. I admired her beauty, her skin. I admired it for it not being mine. Hers was even and a natural tone and color. The best thing you could say about mine, if you were being nice, was that it was creamy white, where it was really stark, pasty, and almost sickly looking, and made every mark, mole and freckle scream and stand out. I looked like a G-d-damn ghost. If I so much as saw a drop of Sunlight, I got burned and afterward flaked off a full layer of skin, painfully, like the snake that I am. She could stay out in the Sun forever, I bet, and that would only deepen and enrich the beautiful color her skin was. She wasn't black, like Latricia, she wasn't even brown (Latricia wasn't black-black, either), she was just right, darker than honey, but not thick like molasses.

I wondered how she tasted.

Okay, where did that come from?

I sighed and went over to her locker.

"What the hell did you mean by all that?" I demanded, already knowing what her 'not where I'm going' and 'good bye' meant.

I wasn't a bull, but I could see red flags waving as well as anybody. She didn't move, she just sat, her ass on the cold wooden bench, her tee draped over her shoulder.

"Grace," I said.

No response.

I put my hand to her chin and turned her to face me.

It felt so ... inverted. I was a Freshman, she was a Senior. She was supposed to know where she was going in life. I was supposed to just be finding out that life wasn't recess at elementary school anymore.

She took her hand to mine and gently removed it from her face.

"Latricia said get your phone number," she said quietly.

"Well," I said, "I'm not giving it to her."

"I know," Grace said.

She was just so closed up in herself. She 'knew,' but everything she wasn't saying about that was all bottled up inside of her, and none of it was coming out.

"Get my phone number or what?" I pushed.

Grace turned back to face her locker. "Or ... nothing. It doesn't matter anymore."

I wanted to smack some life into this girl.

"It doesn't matter anymore, _why?"_ I demanded.

Grace said nothing.

"Grace," I said, "Put on your G-d-damn shirt. I'm not going to talk to you like this."

She looked at me, befuddled for a second, then obeyed mechanically.

She's be perfect for Da5id, I thought, he could hook her up to his XBox and move her around like a remote-controlled robot.

Da5id loves science. She'd be like a science-project.

I sat down next to her and sighed.

"Pants," I mumbled angrily. "You know?"

As she was putting on her jeans I said, "You can't blackmail me with this, Grace. I'm not giving you my phone number so you can just give it to Latricia."

Grace didn't speak, she just sat next to me.

_We really have to work on your communication skills._

I remembered that was what Latricia had said to Grace. Maybe I was starting to see Latricia's point.

"You ever," Grace whispered, "you ever do something ..."

She was quiet.

"My whole life, I did everything right," she said, "I studied hard. I was good. I obeyed my parents, and then... just one little thing, and it's all over. Everything. And now..."

She shrugged sadly.

"What did you do, Grace?" I said. "Do you mean ... you and Latricia?"

Grace was quiet. "No," she said. "That's not little, that's ..."

She made movements with her hands pantomiming a car driving over a cliff's edge.

"And if I don't do what Latricia says, all the time ... she'll tell my parents, and then ..."

"Grace," I said, "that'd be a _good_ thing, don't you see? _Tell_ your parents, and then whatever it is will be over, and you can go on with your life."

She laughed sadly. "'My life.' What a joke!" she said. "My life is over, and all I can do is pretend that it isn't, and hope my parents don't find out 'cause if they do, ... I'll kill myself."

"You'll kill yourself if your parents find out about you and Latricia? Grace, then just break it off with her if you don't want it, and G-d, I don't know, Grace, if you do want it, then tell them. You're only hurting yourself by hiding things from your parents."

I just didn't get what she was saying. Was she talking about her ... 'relationship'?

Grace looked at me solemnly and shook her head. "Becca," she said, "if my parents found out about me and Trish, _they'd_ kill themselves. Just knowing their daughter was ... like that ... and, on top of that, with a black girl, too ... they'd be shamed. Nobody they know would ever ... look at them the same again, to have a daughter so ..."

Grace stopped. She couldn't go on.

"I don't understand," I said.

Grace turned back to face her locker. "No," she said. "Nobody does." She paused. "Trish does."

"Is that why you're going out with her?" I asked, still very confused.

Grace looked at me and two tears fell from her black, black inscrutable eyes.

She looked back at her locker, still, lifeless.

"And you're going to kill yourself if I don't give you my phone number?" I said finally.

Grace didn't say anything anymore.

I shut my eyes and put my head into my hands.

"You know, Grace," I said, "this is not the best pickup line I've heard in my life."

Grace looked at me, a tiny spark lit in her lifeless eyes.

"You'll tell me your number?" she asked hopefully.

"No, I will not tell you my number," I snarled. "Give me your G-d-damn phone."

Grace blinked then fished out her phone from her backpack.

"I am such an enabler," I said as I grabbed her phone. "Enter your passcode!" I added handing it right back to her.

I watched as she put in her passcode.

"At least you have your phone locked," I said.

"Trish knows my passcode," Grace said.

"Why am I so surprised to hear that?" I growled sarcastically.

I took her phone back and called mine, made the connection, then cut it right off after it went to voicemail.

"There," I said, "you happy?"

"Yes," she said.

"You can add it to your contacts," I said. "Do you know how to spell my name?"

"Yes," she said.

"So now it's up to you what you do with it, got me?" I said.

She looked at me sadly. "It's not up to me, Becca. I'm sorry."

"Fine," I said. "Whatever. I'm out of here."

I stood to go.

The locker room door slammed open and banged against the wall. A huge frame filled the doorway. It was Latricia.

I sighed. "Isn't this just dandy!" I exclaimed sarcastically.

Latricia looked from me to Grace, looking down at Grace's phone in her hand, then back up to me.

_Super!_ I thought. Now Latricia knows Grace has my phone number, so Grace can't lie her way out of that, even if she wanted to.

Latricia went to her own locker, and I headed for the door, quickly.

"So I got a question for you."

Latricia's voice stopped me.

I looked at the locker room door.

_Just go!_ I told myself.

Remember how I listen to nobody?

"I thought that's why you wanted my phone number," I said, "'cause you didn't want to ask me here."

"Different question," Latricia said.

I turned, regarding her. She sat on her bench, leaning back a bit, regarding me.

"What?" I said.

"You got Grace's homework because you said it was important to her," Latricia said.

"You _read _my note?" I shouted angrily at Latricia and glared at Grace.

Grace wouldn't look at me.

"Yeah, I read it," Latricia said dismissively. "I know everything going on with my little Gracie, so when she suddenly got better and did her homework that she got ... how? I put it to myself to find out. And I did. So, ... but why does it matter to you what's important to Grace?"

"Huh?" I said. I felt my eyes crease. "What do you mean?"

"You wrote to Grace that her homework was important to her, you brought her books, you collected all her assignments. Why?"

I looked between Latricia and Grace. Latricia was looking at me intently, but Grace just wasn't there. She was just sitting on her bench, a million miles away, not even here.

I shrugged sullenly. "Dunno." I said, "I guess I was just being nice." Then I glared at Latricia. "You know, _nice?_ Some people in this world are nice. You might want to think about that."

"Uh, huh," she answered, totally unaffected by my barb. "So you were being ... _'nice.'"_ Latricia put finger-quotes around the word, then she stopped at looked at me again.

"What?" I demanded.

"Nobody else was," Latricia pointed out. "Nobody else got her homework for her. And you told Grace about her position on the team. Did you stand up for her in practice, too?"

I looked away and shrugged again.

"Anybody else do that? Anybody else care?" Latricia probed.

"Excuse me!" I said. _"Everybody_ was happy to see her back, okay? So ..."

"To see her back, when she was back, but did anybody else think about her when she was gone? Or say anything? ... Besides you?" Latricia pushed.

I shrugged again.

I wish there was a rock, so I could've kicked it.

"What's the point of all this?" I demanded.

Latricia stood and stretched.

Now she shrugged at me. "No point," she said. "It was just a question, that's all."

"Of all the ..." I felt my fists clench and unclench.

Latricia's eyes zoomed right in on my fists. She looked back up into my eyes and smirked.

I felt that Latricia would just _love_ to have me go at her, and right now.

So I didn't.

"'Just a question,' huh?" I said.

"Yup," Latricia said easily and turned to her locker and started to strip off her uniform.

"Well, I've got a question for you," I said.

"Oh, you do," Latricia said, grabbing her towel from her locker.

"Yeah," I said. "If you know everything, then you must know how Grace is doing right now."

Latricia paused, holding her locker door open.

Then she closed it and looked down at Grace.

"Hm," she said. "Yup."

"And you know why, too!" I accused.

Latricia looked at me, pursing her lips.

She slung her towel over her shoulder and sat down across from Grace.

"Yes, I do," she said seriously.

She reached out and turned Grace so that they were sitting face to face.

"Grace," Latricia said. "You're dwelling, aren't you?"

Grace looked up at Latricia.

"Yes," she said softly.

"The past is what, Grace?" Latricia asked.

"The past," Grace said.

"And you dwelling on it is going to change it?" Latricia demanded.

Grace looked down.

"Ah, ah!" Latricia chided her.

Grace looked back up at Latricia.

"No," she said.

"No, it's not," Latricia affirmed. "You have to deal with now."

Latricia stared at Grace.

"Are you dealing with the now, Grace?" she asked softly, relentlessly.

"No," Grace said.

"No, you're not," Latricia said. "But _we_ will deal with that now, won't we, Grace?"

Grace's hands in her lap trembled.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Yes, we will," Latricia said.

Latricia held her gaze with Grace for another moment, then stood and looked at me.

"You can go now," she said to me dismissively.

Then she went to the showers.

Grace's gaze fell to the floor, and she became a stone again.

I stood there, looking at Grace, then looked to the showers where Latricia was.

The water started running.

I shook my head and left.

I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

* * *

**A/N: **Uh. I don't know how Latricia's going to ... 'deal' with this. I actually don't want to know.

um ... the next chapter is so much ... 'nicer,' — yeah, 'nicer' — than this one. Because you get to see what a scheming, conniving, viscous little bitch Becca is.

Ooh! Did I just say that?

Becca did say she gave Grace her homework because she was 'nice,' right?

(moody-foreshadowy dark music plays)


	5. Five Dollars

**Chapter Summary: **"I need a dollar, dollar, dollar is all I need! Hey, hey!" But Latricia didn't say _anything_ about that! She just said come, and I came... over. I came over. And that still didn't save Grace. No, it only made it worse. WARNING: Domestic violence. Coercion. Lots of it.

* * *

I got the call.

Not that night.

Not the next night.

I got it today.

"Hello," I said.

My phone said 'Grace Park.'

I had put her number in my contacts list: her name was easy enough to spell.

But I didn't say 'Hello, Grace?'

Because what if it weren't her?

It weren't.

Wasn't. I mean 'wasn't.'

"So," Latricia's voice was businesslike. "Have you been thinking about it?"

"Thinking about what?" I said, trying to recover that it wasn't Grace calling me after all, not even getting Latricia's question.

As if there were anything to get.

Latricia _tsk_ed.

"When you were over my place last week," Latricia said patiently, "I asked you if you wanted Grace to lick your pussy. Have you been thinking about that at all? Like I do, all the time?"

"Uh ... what?"

This was all going too fast, and was way too weird. I mean: seriously? You _ever_ have a conversation like that?

Latricia sighed. "I'll let that one sink in for ya. And while you're putting the words together in your head, I'll text you links to two of my vines, I want you to watch them and then call me right back. I give you two minutes."

"Excuse me!" I demanded angrily, "how the hell do you get off telling me what to do?"

"I'm not," Latricia said.

"Oh, really?" I retorted.

"No," Latricia said evenly, "I'm not. I'm saying Grace's fate is in your hands."

"Huh? What?" I said, totally confused.

"Watch the vines," Latricia said. "Call me back in two minutes. If you don't, that's what happens to Grace, and more. If you do call me back ... well, we go from there."

"What the ..." I began angrily.

Latricia cut me off.

I glared furiously at my phone. _The nerve!_ I thought.

And then a text came through. It had two links in it.

I put my phone down and thought about this.

I was totally playing Latricia's game, and I hated that. I felt tempted to cut off my phone. _'Oh, text? What text? My battery just died. Really.'_

But that was a lie and a half. I couldn't even say it convincingly to myself, never mind Latricia.

And what if Grace asked about it, afterward? Would I straight-up be able to say that to her?

_Grace's fate is in my hands._

I didn't like that. I didn't like that _at all._ But that's what Latricia had said to me. And I knew she meant it. The last time things didn't go Latricia's way, Grace was out of school for two days. What would happen to Grace this time?

I sighed and clicked on the first link.

It was their kitchen, or, more specifically, Latricia's kitchen table, I guessed, as it looked like her place. Grace was tied down, spread over it, her bare feet touching the linoleum floor, her face down. She was naked and gagged.

And she was in agony.

Her ass was a bright cherry red, and sweat poured down her face and sides.

Latricia stood over her, dressed casually in a white tee shirt and blue jeans, and she held a folded-over leather belt in her hand. She was sweating, too, breathing heavily.

She raised up the belt, and brought it down on Grace's ass with all her might, and if there were sound to the video, I imagined the belt hitting her ass would've been a thunderclap, and I winced in sympathy.

Grace didn't. Her whole body shook, and she threw her head up fully off the table. She screamed and screamed and screamed into her ball gag.

And then scene reset and repeated, over and over and over again.

It was a vine, so it was six seconds long, and captured that instant of agony, serving it on a loop, forever.

I cut it off. My hands were trembling. Actually, my whole body was. I never knew anybody could take that much agony that I saw Grace suffering. I never thought anybody could be so cruel as to give it, as Latricia did.

My hands shook as I picked the next vine.

I didn't think it could worse.

I was wrong, I guess.

Grace, still strapped down, her ass on fire, but it was like she was dead. She head was resting on the table, facing the camera. The ball gag had been removed, but her eyes, although opened, had no life in them.

At all.

Latricia had obviously been working on Grace for a while.

And Latricia stood behind Grace, still in the tee, now soaked, so she was obviously not wearing a bra, and her nipples were as hard as diamonds. She had stripped off her jeans and was wearing a pair of boy-shorts, not panties, but that didn't catch my attention.

She had a strap-on harness, and attached to the front, right over her pussy, was the biggest black cock I had ever seen, glistening in the bright, harsh kitchen light. It was easily twice as long as my brother's, and yes, I had seen it, things ... happen, you know, when you live under the same roof, and you have to go to the bathroom, and Da5id didn't even _close_ the door, much less lock it, and there it was for me to see.

Da5id's dick, like, okay, was the opposite of magnificent. It was more like four or so inches, and no, I didn't measure it, okay, because I was so out of there then, so grossed out.

Latricia wore a big, thick cock that defied reality to my eyes.

And she had her hands on Grace's burning ass, and she pried open Grace's asshole, and, lining up the tip of the cock with it, ... Latricia pushed in.

And Grace's dead face lit up, not with joy, but with shock, and she jerked her head back hard, and moaned in agony, her face twisting up in pain and concentration, trying so hard to take it and not die, it looked like.

It looked like she couldn't take it.

I ...

The vine repeated.

I didn't know anything went up there like that. I knew, okay, shit came out, but ...

Okay, you fuck a girl's pussy, that's what it's for, I get that, but fuck her ass?

I cut off the vine as Grace's ass was being violated again, Grace so tensed up that I was surprised she didn't break her own bones with the tension, she was so scrunched up. And ... just a bit of that monster had been pushed in her, but already Grace was in terrible pain, it looked like, so there was no way any more of it could go in her.

No way. I mean, it didn't look like a fucking, an ass-fucking; it looked more like spinal-replacement surgery.

Two minutes. Two minutes was what Latricia said she'd give me before she'd start ... that.

Had two minutes passed? I didn't know.

I called Grace's number. Good thing it was in my contacts now. I don't think I could have managed entering the ten-digit number with my trembling hands.

"Well, hello, Rebekah Isaac!" Latricia's voice had a false cheeriness to it that I found grating.

After a second, Latricia said, "Hello?"

"You didn't .. you're not doing ... that ... to Grace, are you?" I asked quietly.

Latricia paused herself. "That depends," she said.

"Depends on what?" I asked, hating her for playing this game.

For playing me.

But Latricia's voice wasn't playful. It was serious.

"Well," Latricia said, "that depends on what you're gonna do. Have you been thinking about Grace eating you out at all since you last came over?"

"And you're beating her depends on my answer?" I asked incredulously.

"Just answer the question, please," Latricia said, annoyed. "That is why I called you."

"Well, then," I said honestly, "no, not really."

And I cringed. Should I have lied, and said, _'Oh, I think about Grace Park licking my pussy, like, all the time!'? _Would that have made Latricia happy?

But the day I started worrying about Latricia Bailey's happiness ...

"And why not?" Latricia demanded.

I shrugged.

Does a shrug go through a phone? Why do people shrug and gesture all the time when they're on the phone? It's not like the other person can see them or anything.

So I explained. "I don't know, Latricia ... I mean, I've got school and practice and then, you know? Homework and dealing with stuff at home. I just never ..."

I shrugged again.

"Okay," Latricia said nonchalantly.

I didn't know if Latricia knew that I shrugged when I did, but I certainly could feel _her_ shrug through the phone.

"What does that mean?" I asked sharply, not liking at all what I heard in her 'okay.'

"It means," Latricia said, "that you got your whole life that you have to take care of, as I thought, so that leaves me to take care of little Gracie, and, Rebekah," her tone became menacing, "I will. What you saw was just the start."

"Latricia," I said, "why? Do you get off on that, or something?"

"Oh, yeah!" Latricia's voice just oozed evil. "But it's not that, dearie." Okay, I did _not_ like that. "I told you you had a choice, and you choose yourself. That's fine. The world is filled with people who are _real good_ at taking care of themselves, but, Becca, taking care of number one? That makes us just as good as everybody else in the world, just another air-breathing consumer: a waste. You're only as good as the people you take care of, and if it's just you ... well, you can just fuck off and die for all I'm concerned, because that's exactly what you're gonna do."

_Wow,_ I thought sarcastically, _cool! I'm getting me my very own Life Lessons from Latricia._

She should write a self-help book or something, title it: _Be Good or I'll Fuck Grace up the Ass._

G-d save me.

"I don't get it," I said angrily. "What do you care how I am or that Grace's, I don't know, well-being is important to me?"

"I don't care," Latricia said.

_Okay,_ I thought. There were only so many ways for me to say _I don't get it, _right? I mean: right?

I guess I had to say it one more time.

At least Latricia was talking, and not beating the crap out of Grace.

At least there was that.

Those vines? Those were the most horrifying things I had ever seen a person do to another person. I thought nightmares like that only existed in those stupid 'kill-each-other-for-my-sick-pleasure' movies, but I guess I was wrong there.

How could anybody get off on hurting somebody else like that?

I didn't get it.

I didn't get a lot of things, I guess. I supposed I had been living a _really_ sheltered life, and I thought drinking and sex were my two biggest hurdles to overcome before people didn't think of me as a kid anymore.

Latricia had passed those a _long_ time ago, it looked like, and she was doing stuff I didn't ever dream of.

Stuff I didn't want to.

"I don't get it," I said softly, aware, now, how stupid I was to the ways of the world.

Latricia laughed. "See," she said, "it's like this. I think that you _are_ a carer, you know? I think it's going to kill you to say 'no,' knowing what that will do to Grace, and that's what I'm banking on here, because you actually don't matter to me, but, see, Grace has been performing unsatisfactorily for me recently, and I've tried various methods, you know, but nothing. She's dying inside, and it's getting to be more of a pain in the ass for me to motivate her, than, for example, to let her fulfill her heart's desire and off herself so I can send off her skinny little body to the butcher shop to be processed as pork produce so I at least get something for my trouble."

I listened in horror to this.

"You have _got_ to be joking!" I said.

"Why?" Latricia asked. "As soon as I cut this little shit off, _ziiit, _she offs herself. Isn't that right, Gracie?"

There was silence on the line for a second.

"Yeah," Latricia said, "that's Grace, dead, dead, boring dead, I swear to God, but the only little spark I saw recently, besides her begging, which I so love, was when she mentioned your name as somebody 'nice' and 'cute,' so I thought ... _huh,"_ Latricia said thoughtfully, "worth a try, I guess, so that's where you come in."

"Wow!" I said, getting it now. "That's just so ... _marvy!"_

I heard Latricia shrug through the phone again. "Like I said, your opinion? I could care less. But this is entirely your choice, see? You get your pussy licked, and it better be licked _well,_ you hear me, Grace?" I guess she was talking to Grace for that order. "And maybe she livens up a bit. This is _way_ better for Grace than the alternative if you don't come ... come over, that is. But, if that doesn't work out, I don't care, because Grace is going to get motivated, and not with the beating, that's not working anymore, so now I do it for fun. I've planned a new way to motivate her if you don't work out."

"What's that?" I asked, enthralled, and then regretted asking.

"We have an away game next Wednesday," Latricia said.

"Yeah ..." I said. We were playing T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria.

"The football team and all you cheerleaders are being bussed there, but not everybody's taking the busses. Some of the senior guys are driving. I'm driving, and I'm taking Grace with me. I promised the guys after the game that I'd provide them a little something special at the Fairlington Pizza place after the game. If maybe a little bit of 'nice' and 'cute' variety doesn't spice Grace up, then maybe some dick, ... a _lot_ of dick will. Or if it doesn't, and it's too much for her, maybe the threat of having to do that again the next game might get her properly motivated. We'll see."

I blinked. "That is ..."

"Brilliant?" Latricia finished for me. "Thanks, I'm rather pleased with the idea myself."

I was thinking more along the lines of _atrocious_ or _horrific._

"So," she said. "Your choice. Either you're here, in a half-hour from ... right now, or I go to Plan... beat-the-shit-out-of-Grace-and-I'm-not-kidding... 'B' with a side of Fairlington Grace Pizza for the Senior Guys Wednesday. What do you say?"

She asked that last question all chipper-like.

But I had another problem. "Half an hour? There's no way I could run to your place in that amount time, even if I tried!" I said.

I checked the time myself. It was 7:45 pm, which meant I had to be at Latricia's place at 8:15 pm. There was no way.

"Well, see," Latricia said. "That's your problem, not mine. Or ... actually that's Grace's problem. If you're not here in time, Grace will pay for it, and I'll love every minute of it. But, Grace? Maybe not so much. Think about that, little girl." Then she warned ominously: "But I wouldn't think about it too long, if I were you. Ta-ta!" She sang, cheerful again.

And hung up.

I looked at my phone: 7:46 pm.

No way.

... Wait.

Maybe a way.

I ran to Da5id's room.

"bb!" I shouted, storming into his room, his door slamming open hard against his wall.

He was on XBox, of course.

Thank _G-d_ he wasn't masturbating! I did not need that image in my head, again.

... You learn to knock on your brother's door in this house. I learned that the hard way.

"_Not now!" _he said tightly.

"G-d-damn, Da5id," I said. "Pause the game. This is important!"

"Can't," he said, fully focused on his screen. "Online."

I looked at his LCD and saw him going toe-to-toe a megabot or whatever it's called.

He was playing _Titanfall,_ of course. He lived and breathed that game now.

I looked at him, I looked at his screen.

Then I shut off his XBox.

You don't do that. Period.

Ever.

He screamed in shock.

"What the ..." he shouted. "Okay, the _fuck's_ your problem, Becca?" he demanded, slamming down his controller and whipping off his headphones.

He looked like he was ready to kill me.

Good. Now that I had his attention...

"Da5id," I said, radiating intensity, matching his fury with my calm, "what do you want more than anything in the world? I'll give it to you, right now."

"_Whaaa?" _he said. "Look, what I _wanted _was to _finish my game!_ With my _friends! Hello?"_

Friends. Yeah, right. The only friends he had were online, all over the world, and who knew who they actually were?

"Yeah," I said, "you want to finish this game, then play the next and the next and the next, right?"

He looked at me puzzled. "Yeah, ... so?"

Like that was the whole point in life, to play games. It was like crack for him. This game was good only because it led to the next game.

It's like a sickness, I think, for him.

"So," I said, "I'm talking, like, totally different. I'm talking, like, what do you _want,_ Da5id, and I mean _really want_ in life, you get me?" I said.

Da5id looked puzzled. "Uh, no," he said, "so ... are we done with this conversation? I have five teammates I have to apologize to now for quitting on them for no fucking reason that I can see, so ..."

And he turned his XBox back on and grabbed his headphones.

I turned the XBox right off again.

He screamed. _"Oh, my G-d! _Don't _do_ that, Becca! You _know_ how fragile these things are!"

"Uh, huh," I said. I knew how fragile his 'things' were. But we're not talking about 'things.' "Look, I don't have time to fuck around, and you don't want to lose another XBox, so just listen to me, okay? And I'll, like, I don't know, leave you alone for ... all of tomorrow, okay?"

Da5id paused considering, and I saw the wheels turning inside his brain.

Not have his little sister bug him for a whole day...? What kind of price could you put on that?

Let me tell you, the feeling was mutual ... but I still bugged him, every day, just to get under his skin as, you know, payback for him breathing and being the asshole big brother that he was all the time.

"So," he looked at me suspiciously, "what do you want?"

"Drive me over to 236 and Heritage, now," I said.

"Huh?" Da5id said, "All the way on the _other_ side of town? Why?"

"Da5id," I said, "it's just, like, three miles."

I tried to down-play my request. The way he said _'other_ side of town,' ...

We lived on the nice-neighborhood side of town, and that area of town was the _other_ side of town, meaning: the _not-nice_ side of town. But, like, I was ... uncomfortable going there the first time, but nothing bad happened to me, so it wasn't all that bad, right?

That's what I tried to convey in my tone.

Looking at Da5id's face, I didn't do a very good job of convincing him. Or, I don't know, his face usually did look like he just ate something really sour, so that could just be his natural look, right?

"I don't know, sis," he said skeptically.

"C'mon, bb, it'll get you out in the open air away from your room," I said. I mean, the air in his room smelt stale, you know? _Rank._ Some fresh air would do him a _world _of good.

And let's not talk about his complexion. I mean, seriously.

"I don't want to go out," he said, unconvinced.

Yep, my brother: the dweeb.

"What do you want?" I demanded, my eye on the time. My heartbeat was counting each second I was trying to convince bb to take me by Latricia's house.

Time wasted? I hoped to G-d not.

"Nothing," he said, shrugging.

"_Nothing? _C'mon, Da5id! You have to want _some_thing!" I said in desperation.

"Hm," he said coolly, "yeah, in fact: I do. I want you to get out of my room and leave me alone. How's that sound, sis?"

I closed my eyes. "You're a virgin, right?" I said.

Da5id's eyes narrowed. "What?" he demanded coldly.

Yup. He's a virgin.

"Don't you want ..." I said.

Well, you know, teenage boy, right? What do they think of every seventeen seconds?

Sex.

"... you know," I finished weakly, "to ..." I shrugged, "... get laid, you know?"

Da5id looked at me like I was from an alien planet.

No. Strike that. If I were from an alien planet, Da5id probably would probably be the first one to jump in my landing craft and enthusiastically ask me to take him to my leader.

"Okay," Da5id said, "like, one, how do you ever see that happening, because, two, _who_ would ever get so desperately drunk she's fall for this face, huh?"

He did have a point there.

A really good point.

It wasn't his face, really. There were guys a lot uglier. Da5id wasn't fugly, and he showered, occasionally, when he remembered.

But it was his attitude that stunk to high heaven.

"I could ..." I essayed, "... ask one of the cheerleaders, ... maybe."

Again, the incredulous look from Da5id. "And she'd say 'yes' just because you asked," he snorted, then added, "and because I'm so ..."

He looked at me expectantly.

Oh, I was supposed to supply something there.

"Smart?" I said.

He laughed. "And that has girls throwing themselves at me? Right."

"Um," I offered, "'cause you're so ... nice?"

Da5id just looked at me at that one.

"Yeah," he said, pissed now. "I'm so _'nice.'_ Right."

He picked up his headphones. "Swear to G-d, Becca, you touch my XBox again, I break your arm. Again."

He turned on his XBox, signed into Live, ... and zoned right out.

He was in another world now. He was gone.

I left his room. Pissed at the time I had wasted in this pointless convo.

Yes, he broke my arm before, when we were kids, we were wrestling, and he fell on top of me and ... _snap, _you know?

It was an accident, you know? But Da5id, after that...

He never forgave himself. That's when we stopped playing with each other, and ever since, Da5id's been withdrawn, and ... well, ... I let him.

Because I never forgave him, too.

He was my big brother. He's supposed to look out for me, you know? He's supposed to protect me, not hurt me.

And he messed up. He did hurt me, by accident, but he hurt me.

But now that I'm a cheerleader, and he's a ...

I don't know what Da5id is ... a nerd, that's what he is.

Now that he's a nerd, and yes, he was still bigger and older than me, but still, I think I could do some serious damage to him, because Grace had muscle tone?

_I_ had muscle tone. Grace was a flyer, and she had to float there and be beautiful, but I was one of the bases, and I did the heavy lifting on the team.

Literately.

I could do some serious damage to Da5id, if I wanted to.

And I oh-so-wanted to do that right now.

I mean: there was just no reaching Da5id. He wasn't, like, a human being. He was just so totally unrelatable to people. He was more like a computer than a person, actually: a computer that did whatever he wanted, all the time.

Asshole.

But what would me and Da5id getting into a fight prove? It was just so juvenile! Of the two of us, _I_ was the mature one. I guess it's true about girls maturing faster than boys, because Da5id was just so immature.

Besides, I didn't have time to waste on him anymore.

It was 8 pm. I had fifteen minutes to reach Latricia's place.

There was no way I could run that fast for that long. I'd have to run 4-5 minute miles all the way. It took me like a half-hour to reach home from her place last time, and I was jogging and running, but I was definitely winded. To get there in fifteen minutes from now?

Impossible.

Grace was, literally, screwed if I didn't think of something fast.

_Think. Think. Think, G-d damn it, Becca!_ I screamed to myself.

Steal Da5id's car?

That would totally work. If I taught myself to drive on the way to Latricia's house. Didn't look like it was too hard. And every cop between here and there were asleep or at the Starbucks.

They don't go to Krispy Kreme, anymore; cops these days show up at Starbucks in the morning, just like everybody else.

So, yeah, that would so work. Steal Da5id's keys to his Volvo, smash up everything between here and there as I backed my way into another car whipping by our residential road, and ...

Fuck. I'm fucked if I do that, and Grace is fucked if I don't.

Fuck. What to do!

Wait!

_Fucking waitaminit!_

My bicycle!

I was running downstairs and into the garage full speed when I thought of this. I pushed the garage-door opener and listened to it groan open — it'd been _years_ since anybody'd used the garage. Park your car in garage? Like: who does that? — and grabbed my kid bike that I hadn't ridden in _years._

Pink. With handle streamers. _Cuteness!_ I thought sarcastically.

The tires were flat. Shoot! Why do the tires have to be flat?

I grabbed the tire pump and wasted two precious minutes pumping up my tires, praying to G-d that they would stay inflated all the way — What? Why are you giving me that look? I'm a Jew, I can pray to G-d, even if I don't believe in Him. It's my G-d damn right! — then I mounted my bike and sped out the garage and down the driveway like a bat out of hell.

No helmet, casual clothes, shorts and a tee: if I fell, I'd be road pizza.

I didn't have time to think about that. I only had time to petal as hard and as fast as I could. I didn't have time to stop at traffic lights; I just had enough time to play chicken with a white Acura, a black Lexus and a beat-up old Ford F150 as I was blitzing through that Bradlick intersection, where a fatality happens every single day, literally taking my life into my hands as I blew through the light there.

And for what?

Do you believe in the Soul? I do. G-d made Man in His own image. That's right there at the beginning of your Bible. Do you know who wrote that passage? A Jew did.

I saw why Grace was so lifeless at school now: Latricia had killed her soul. And we Jews didn't have a Savior, like you Christians do. When you sinned, you sinned, and that was it. You could try to atone for your sin, but there was not 'reconciliation' or whatever. There was no Messiah for us Jews, not anymore; that was just a pipe-dream.

But Grace's soul was dead, or in grave peril of death, if I didn't save her now, somehow.

I just had to figure out how.

Me, a Jew, saving somebody's soul.

That would be funny if I had a second to spare to laugh at it. I didn't. I had time to peddle with all my might and play dodge'm cars, idiot drivers honking their horns at _me_ for their reckless drivers.

The DC area? I swear to G-d, drivers here are intentionally insane. My dad the worst of them, redefining the term 'aggressive driver' to 'David Isaac, Sr.'

So, yeah: now you know why he's so G-d-damn proud of his son, and why I so don't exist on his radar.

I'm not the beloved first-born son.

I took my anger and self-hate and used it to push me forward faster.

But do you know what so many famous comediennes are Jewish? Because to be a Jewish woman is to be a realist. And to be a realist in this fucked up fantasy world everybody else is living in is _so funny,_ isn't it?

I tried to make my legs peddle faster. You can actually _will _yourself to keep going, even after your body gives up, did you know that?

It took forever and three hours to reach the apartments where Latricia lived, and absolutely no time at all, because I don't remember one second of the harrowing trip getting there.

I just remember getting there, throwing my bike under the steps, praying that nobody would steal it, and running up the two flights of stairs and down the hall, full tilt to Latricia's door.

There.

I banged on the door, three times, hard and fast, trying to catch my breath.

"Latricia," I gasped, "it's me, Rebekah Isaac!"

After a few seconds, the door opened.

Latricia stood at the doorway, looking down at her phone.

"How long, Grace?" she called.

Faint from a distance, I heard Grace's voice call back. "Twenty-seven minutes?"

I stood there, panting and sweating, the adrenaline draining out of me, leaving behind a trembling muscle ache throughout my whole body.

Latricia looked back down at her phone and pursed her lips appreciatively.

"More like twenty-seven minutes, thirty-three seconds," she grumbled, displeased with Grace's inaccuracy. She looked back up at me, "But still good time. What did you do? Sprint the whole way from your house or something?"

I nodded, gulping in air. _'Or_ _something'_ was the most accurate explanation, but I didn't have breath in my body to answer her.

I leaned against the wall and wiped the sweat from my eyes. "Thirsty," I gasped, "can I have a glass of water?"

Latricia smirked. "We can do that. C'mon in," and she opened the door fully for me.

I staggered in.

"Grace!" Latricia called, her voice thundering throughout the small apartment, "get our guest here a tall glass of water, ..." She paused and looked me up and down. "And a damp wash cloth."

"You should be in track," Latricia said appreciatively.

"Thanks," I gasped and collapsed on the lounge chair.

Grace sprinted from the back room to the kitchen, a flash of flesh streaking past my periphery.

Okay, but, wait ... was she naked?

I think I saw Grace run into the kitchen naked.

I didn't have to guess for long, because out came Grace, a tall glass of water, iced, in her hands, blushing like ... well, a bride on her wedding night.

Strike that, a _virgin_ bride on her wedding night, ... who wasn't Jewish, and didn't have the whole night planned out already.

Naked.

My eyes must have been the size of saucers, because Latricia chuckled at me.

"I admire fine art," Latricia explained to me, "and, Grace," she said, "you are lookin' _fine!"_

Grace blushed, offering me the water silently.

"Plus," Latricia added, "I always like her primed and at the ready. Easy access, you know?"

Grace trembled at that statement, making the ice in the glass _tinkle_ in sympathy.

I took the glass from Grace, to save her the mortifying embarrassment. She looked like she was actually about to explode from shame and shyness.

"Grace," Latricia said, "what do you say to Becca, huh?"

"Th-thank you for coming," Grace said quickly.

"Yeah," Latricia barked out a sharp laugh, ignoring Grace, as she talked to me. "'Cause you literally saved her ass! I had her all strapped down and everything, thinking you weren't going to show after all, and then knock-knock at the door. Surprised me. But you should have seen Grace: she almost peed herself in relief!"

Latricia returned her attention to Grace. "Is that what you mean by 'thank you,' huh, Grace?"

Grace bit her lip and looked at the ground.

Latricia chuckled, in a good mood. She looked almost jolly!

... Okay, 'jolly' was maybe going a bit too far for a 6-foot-plus defensive tackle for Annandale Atom's football team, every inch of her badass. But she was in a really good mood, you could tell.

"Well, where's the washcloth for Becca?" Latricia demanded.

Grace blanched. "I was just ... I was just going to get it," she said quickly.

"Well, don't stand there just simpering. Go, girl, go! Hop to it!" Latricia commanded.

Grace didn't actually 'hop,' but she scampered off down the hallway fast as a scared little bunny rabbit would: _hop-hop-hop-scamper!_

That's the image I had in my mind of Grace now: a scared little brown bunny. About the only thing she was good for was roadkill pizza, it seemed.

Grace raced back, washcloth in hand, and I wiped down my face and neck, grateful to get the sweat off me. It was stinging my eyes and burning my neck where the collar of my tee chafed it.

Couldn't do anything about my tee.

Or the bad wedgie. Ick.

"Now," Latricia said, taking charge. "Grace is glad you came, ..."

She paused and chuckled at her own joke.

I blinked, not getting it. Grace was silent.

Latricia frowned at us both. "But, Grace, I don't think you're showing proper deference and enthusiasm. Becca here just basically saved your ass, and all she gets for it is a mealy-mouthed 'thank you'?"

Grace blanched, and her whole body was rigid, paralyzed by fear.

"And you," Latricia turned her glare on me, "you sure know speak your mind, doncha, girl? And right to my face, too, in school on the phone, behind my back, I bet."

I snorted angrily. "No, Latricia, like you think you're worth my time me to talk behind your back?"

I was furious. I _hate_ the rumor mill. One girl literally flipped out and was taken out on a stretcher because of it, and we never saw her again. Her parents pulled her from school, and I don't blame them.

I blame myself, though. Little blond, pale runt, what did she do to anybody but be nice and scared, and she got so picked on ...

And I so never stood up for her...

And one day, she was screaming and crying, and the paramedics came, and carted her away in the ambulance.

I don't talk behind people's back. If I have a problem with you, I say it to your face. And I don't let anybody talk to me about somebody else. I won't let that talk happen even near me.

In the girls' locker room? Is that possible? I wasn't the most popular cheerleader on the team, but everybody else got the hint, and right quick. Frosh, no frosh, I don't stand for that shit.

So Latricia's accusation stung me double.

But my counter-sting did nothing to her. She snorted. "Yeah, like that. You can just mouth off, and you think that doesn't have consequences. You think you can say what you want, and not pay for it?"

I glared at Latricia. "Last I checked, it's a free country."

Latricia smirked, getting that barb.

The Jews fled to this country, what were left of them, after the Holocaust, because it was a hell of a lot freer than being worked to death or gassed in the concentration camps in Germany, _and_ Poland _and _France, or before that, being run down by the Cossacks with their pogroms.

Fuckers.

But the Blacks were brought here, and they weren't free, not even after the Civil War, not even a long time after it, with the Jim Crow laws and everything. Lots of Blacks are still waiting on their forty acres and a mule that they're supposed to get from the US Government but never will.

Jews were reduced to _nothing_ but we scraped our way to the top in New York City and basically everywhere we go. Blacks, though, ... they make up how much of the country now? Thirty percent? More? _Way_ more than Jews who aren't even a statistic we're so small of a population.

But the only place Blacks are overrepresented are in the prisons, and in menial jobs. School cafeteria, yes, but school administrator? Some places, maybe.

"It is," Latricia said darkly. "You can say whatever the fuck you want, 'cause it's a free country, but there are costs to that, see? You think you can just say anything you want to anybody, and there're no consequences? Well, guess what, sweet pea: I'm not just anybody you can mouth off to and get away with it. There's a price to pay for what you say, and guess who's gonna pay it?"

With that, her hand struck like lightning, grabbing Grace by the back of her hair.

"Ah!" Grace cried out, cringing, but she didn't struggle.

"Wait!" I said.

"Grace," Latricia said to her, ignoring me, "how many this time, you think? How many for you to pay for your passive shit and for this little shit's lip?"

Latricia nodded toward me as she said the latter 'little shit.'

"She doesn't have to ..." I began, but Grace shook her head at me in terror.

"F-five, Latricia," Grace whimpered, drawing Latricia's attention. "I-I can take five, please."

Latricia's lip curled with contempt. "Five, huh?" she said. "You're right about that, but only that much? Is that what your miserable little life is worth, huh? Just five?"

"P-please," Grace said. "I-I ..." she gasped. "I can't ... you're just too ... hard on me, I can't take any more than that, please, Latricia."

Latricia shook Grace slightly. "Do tou think I care what you can or can't take?"

Grace was silent, but a single tear fell from her eye.

"How's about," Latricia said, "I beat you until I'm convinced you want to step up your game with me, just a tad more, huh, Grace?"

"Mm-mm..." Grace began.

"And," Latricia added, cutting her off, "I'm convinced that one," she nodded at me again, "wants to play nice, too, huh, Gracie, what do you say to that?"

Grace didn't have anything to say to that. But she nodded her head in helpless jerks.

Latricia turned her attention to me. "So get this, Becca. Grace is going to suffer, and it's all because of you and your stuck-up attitude. Grace," she said to Grace, "every single stroke I administer? Becca's fault. So I want your eyes on her the whole time, got me?"

Grace bit her lip but nodded solemnly.

I was like ...

I was like ... how in the world is this my fault?

But I knew how. I stuck my nose where I shouldn't have. I stood up for Grace, and I should have just let her get run under the truck that is Latricia. That's what I should've done. I told myself that, but did I listen?

No.

I told myself it'd be weird accepting Grace's invitation in the first place. Did I listen?

No.

And now I'm sucked into this nightmare.

"Grace," Latricia commanded, "lie over the table."

Latricia let Grace go, and Grace meekly moved toward the kitchen.

"No, Grace," Latricia's voice stopped her. "Here," she said, pointing at the coffee table. "We're gonna do this right here."

Grace bit her lip, but she complied.

She was so low to the ground, her body over the coffee table, face down.

"_Look_ at Becca, Grace," Latricia ordered.

Grace, helplessly, looked at me as Latricia removed her belt from her jeans with a practiced air. She whipped the belt off, holding it by the buckle, and let it dangle down onto Grace's butt.

Grace flinched.

Latricia looked at me. "Now, you're gonna see how this little Korean bitch gets brought into line. This is the only thing she understands. This is the only way to get this little shit to fucking hop to it when I say 'jump,' ..." Latricia smiled maliciously. "Or, 'hump,' as the case may be. This is the price _you_ pay, so watch. Maybe you'll learn something."

Latricia folded her belt over onto itself, holding it in both hands for a second, then ...

_CRACK!_

The blow was so sudden and so vicious, I barely saw the swing, but I did see Latricia lean into the strike, putting her whole weight behind it.

"_Ahhhhh!" _Grace cried.

"_Grace," WHACK! "shut" WHACK! "UP!" WHACK!_

Grace's cry turned into a keening continuous wail, and she gripped onto the coffee table's legs with a death grip.

Latricia paused, panting and sweating after only four blows, but ... 'four blows'? What punishment could those words possibly convey? 'Four blows'? If Latricia were a blacksmith and she swung the hammer onto the anvil like this, I don't think the anvil would've lasted long.

I didn't see how Grace did. I couldn't. After the first blow, I looked away, wincing, not being able to take the agony that Grace did.

"Grace," Latricia said calmly, but breathing hard, "you want the cops to come again? Is that what you want?"

"N-n-noooooo," Grace moaned.

"You want to spend the night in jail, and have your parents pick you up there, huh?" Latricia demanded.

"N-no, no! Please, no," Grace begged.

"Then can you shut the fuck up, or do you want the fucking gag, Grace? You tell me, and you tell me true," Latricia snarled.

"I'll be ..." Grace gulped, "I'll be quiet, please, Trish. Not the gag, please. I'll be quiet. I swear."

Latricia snorted. "You're right about one thing, Grace," she said. "You _will_ be quiet. Eventually."

She let her belt's bitter end fall onto Grace's ass again, and Grace flinched and nearly seized in terror.

Latricia's breath was returning to normal.

"Now, Grace," she said, "how many was that?"

"F-four," Grace said.

"Nope," Latricia's voice was gleeful, "guess again."

I looked back at them at that.

Tears were falling freely from Grace's eyes, and she was more at rest than when she was receiving the blows, but she looked terrified and betrayed. Her throat was working, as she looked helplessly at me.

"How many, Grace?" Latricia demanded.

"S-sss-s-ss-s-s-..." Grace hissed, not getting the word out.

"How many?" Latricia's voice was threatening now, and her belt snaked off Grace's ass and back, folded in half, into her hand.

"S-sss-z-ss-ze-zero, Latricia," Grace forced out.

And then she looked utterly forlorn.

"Yep," Latricia smirked.

"Huh?" I gasped.

She ignored me.

"You know why?" she asked Grace.

"'Cause I ... 'cause I disobeyed you," Grace whimpered and a tear fell off the tip of her nose onto the coffee table.

"How?" Latricia pressed.

"I-I ... screamed when you told me to sh-shut up," Grace gulped.

"Nope," Latricia said easily. Then ...

_WHACK!_

"_Ahhhh! Ah-hah!"_ Grace cried out.

I flinched and looked away.

_WHACK!_

Grace moaned and whimpered, trying to bury the scream in her guts.

"_That's _why!" Latricia snarled.

_WHACK!_

"_Ahhhh!"_ The scream didn't stay buried.

_WHACK!_

Now Grace screamed.

"_That's_ why," Latricia's voice was calm, detached, and imperious, all at the same time.

Grace was panting. Latricia was panting.

And my fingernails were trying to press themselves into my palms. I stood there helplessly, wishing Latricia would stop, but not knowing how to make her stop.

"You disobeyed me, Grace," Latricia said calmly, "by not looking at Becca. I told you to do that, but you're not."

Grace whimpered and whined, and I looked back at them and a sound pulled itself from my guts. _"Uhn?"_

As far as I saw, Grace was looking at me the whole time!

Latricia smirked at me. "Grace can't look at you, and know you, Becca, ... _you_ did this to her, if you're not looking back at her, now, can she?"

My eyes widened. "You ..."

"You got something to say to me, ... _bitch?"_ Latricia demanded harshly.

And then she smiled, waiting.

My palms _really hurt!_

But I kept my mouth shut.

Latricia's smile turned gloating.

"Ya see, Becks," Latricia mentioned casually. "This is the only thing that Gracie understands: do what I say, make me happy, ... or else. She's not even a person. A person could figure this out on her own, but Grace? Noooo. You're not even an animal, Grace," she returned her attention to Grace again. "'Cause now you're not even getting the message at the end of my belt. You should be thanking me every second of your miserable existence that you're not outside on the street corner, right now, begging for quarters, or ... what do you slants say, 'five dallah, fuckie-suckie'? _That's_ how low you've sunk, Grace, you _cunt!" _Latricia snarled that last word, and brought her belt down. Hard.

_THWACK!_

"_Nooo-ahhhiiiiiya!"_ Grace tried to deny her lot, but her voice was cut off by her own scream as Latricia's belt connected with Grace's sore ass.

"Zero, Grace," Latricia remarked dryly. "You can thank Becca for that."

I had looked away again. I couldn't help myself.

"And, sweetie," she added darkly. "Not 'no.' Oh, no. In fact, this is your life, cunt. You're my filthy little yellow whore now, and you're going to _beg _me to say that, and then you're going to _thank _me afterward. And, Grace, you'd better thank me from the bottom of your heart for it, too, I swear to God!"

"Oh, God!" Grace breathed out. "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

Latricia smiled down a Grace kindly. "Good warm-up? You ready to get started?"

"Guaaaaah!" Grace moaned softly.

Latricia snickered. "Good," she said.

Then she looked at me. "This is how this works. You look away? You _flinch?_ We start again, at zero. Got me?"

I bit my lip and glared hard at Latricia.

"And for that look, ..." she said.

_THWACK!_

"_Aiiiiiiieeee!"_ Grace cried.

But I looked.

Latricia frowned and knelt beside Grace. "That was a free one for Miss Becca's high and mighty look, Grace, but it wouldn't have counted, away. I thought you said you could keep quiet, huh? Gag? 'Cause this screaming is really pissing me off, in a good way ... for me."

Grace was moaning.

"You keep quiet?" Latricia demanded.

Grace's eyes were leaking as she looked up to Latricia. She nodded her head jerkily.

Latricia smirked and stood again.

"She hates the gag," she explained to me, smiling. "She hates that by her not begging, I just really lose it on her. Without the gag, she gets the choice to beg, and I get to choose whether she's learned her lesson or not. _With_ the gag, though, ..." Latricia shrugged.

"Well," she said, "I just keep going until I get bored." She shrugged again. "Ever beat a dead horse? No? It's borin' after a while."

_WHACK!_

"Oh, my God!" Grace whispered, her eyes round.

_WHACK!_

"_Nnh," _Grace grunted.

Latricia smiled, sweating.

_WHACK!_

Grace threw her head back, to the side of the table, closing her eyes.

"Grace," Latricia warned.

Grace opened her eyes again. It looked like she _forced _them open, moved her head back and looked at me.

I could count her ribs, she was just so wound up around the table, into herself.

_WHACK!_

Latricia didn't ease off at all. If anything, she leaned into even more, if that were possible.

"_Ooooh, God!" _Grace whimpered. _"Ooooh! G-"_

_THWACK!_

"_Kk-kk!" _Grace coughed. Her plea was cut-off by Latricia's strike, and she just choked out sounds now. She was openly crying.

"Got anything to say, Gracie?" Latricia panted, perspiring.

"Oh, my God! Please, oh, God! Latricia, stop!" Grace begged with all her heart.

"_Wrong!"_ Latricia bellowed, and came down with a mighty blow this time.

_WHACK!_

"_Aiiiieee!"_ Grace cried, not being able to hold in her scream anymore.

Latricia paused, panting.

"Please, ..." Grace whimpered.

I didn't know she said that, because my whole _being_ was saying it for her.

Latricia let the belt fall on Grace's back. Grace was panting and crying. Latricia was panting and sweating hard.

"This isn't about you, Gracie-poo," Latricia talked down to Grace as if she were a child. "Don't you get it? I stop when Becks wants me to."

"What?" I said, shocked.

Grace looked at me with terror-filled eyes.

Latricia put her finger to her lips to me and returned attention to Grace. "You _beg_ her to lick her sweet pussy, and she says 'yes,' I stop, she says 'no,' ..."

_Whack!_

A nice, soft, ... ground-shaking spank from Latricia's belt.

Grace's eyes nearly popped from her head.

"Oh, my Go.." I began, and stopped myself, bearing down. "Oh, my G-d! Yes!" I said. "Yes!"

Latricia openly laughed. "Grace didn't even ask the question yet, Beckers," she said gloating. _"AND," _ she added, "Grace needs to pay her five for your lip first before anything you say matters, got me?"

I bore down, bit my lip, hard, and looked away, nodding.

Latricia chuckled, but there was an edge to it.

"Grace," she said, "you can beg all you want now. Just make sure you beg for the right thing, and sound convincing, huh? We don't want Becca to say 'no,' now, do we?"

"Please, ..." Grace whispered.

_WHACK!_

"Oh, my God!" Grace cried, "Please let me lick your pussy!"

"_HA!"_ Latricia shouted, then ...

_WHACK!_

"_Aiiiee!" _ Grace cried.

"You call that begging, Grace?" Latricia snarled. "That's what I call _weak!"_

_WHACK!_

"_Oooh! Please! Becca," _Grace wailed her efforts redoubled_, "please-please-please let me lick your pussy! Oh, God, please, let me ..."_

_WHACK!_

"_Uhh!"_ The air forced itself from Grace. _"Uhhh! Oh, God! Oh, God! Becca, please, oh, GOD! let me lick your pussy. God! I ... I so want to li-..."_

_THWACK!_

Grace's entire body shook with that blow.

"Oh, God!" Grace whispered. "Oh, God!" she didn't even have strength to move, her head just resting on the coffee table. "Oh, God!"

She blinked — once, twice, three times — her eyes trying to focus.

They focused on me. "Please, Becca," she begged.

"Yes," I whispered to her, a lump on my throat so big that almost no sound came out.

"Please," she said, "please let me lick your pussy," she begged from the bottom of her heart. I saw it in her eyes. They weren't empty. They weren't pain-filled.

She wanted this.

I swallowed. "Yes," I said.

And I did, too.

"Great!" Latricia said brightly, panting.

I had forgotten she was even there, can you believe it?

"You got five dollars?" she asked me.

I blinked, reeling from the realization of how badly I wanted Grace, not even knowing it until just right now, reeling from what I just said, reeling from Latricia being there, seeing it all.

I didn't even understand her question at first.

But I was in short-shorts and a tee.

I didn't even bring keys to the house, I came here so fast.

Money? Did I have five dollars?

"Uh," I blinked. "Uh, no, actually."

Latricia looked down at Grace, beaten down into the table, and she looked back up at me and shook her head.

"Uh, oh!" she said ominously.

And she left the room.

Grace looked at me, her eyes hurting me, they looked so tired. She swallowed and coughed, and closed her eyes, tears spilling from them.

"Grace," I whispered, "what does that mean?"

"_Ahhhhmmmh," _She sighed a sigh from her very guts, then she tried valiantly to collect herself. "I don't ... I don't know," she whispered back.

That took everything she had left.

I fell back into the easy chair and took a big gulp of water from my glass.

I wanted to ask Grace if she wanted some, but she was out, her breaths swallow and even, drool dripping onto the coffee table already from her slightly opened mouth.

I watched Grace sleep like a baby.

She looked so G-d-damn cute and beautiful and innocent. So G-d-damn trusting in her sleep. So pure.

The poor kid, I thought. How the hell was I going to get her out of this nightmare?

I still had no G-d-damn idea. _G-d damn it, Becca! _I screamed to myself, _fucking think of something NOW!_

Silence in my empty head was my only response.

I was, after all, a brainless cheerleader, right? I put my head into my hands. _Well, _I thought of a bitter comfort, _at least the zombies will leave me alone when World War Z starts or whatever._

That small consolation was no consolation at all, looking at all that remained of Grace's spirit: a weak shell of a body looking so much less solid than the coffee table it was draped over as she slept.

* * *

**A/N: **_Who the hell writes this kind of shit?_ I asked myself, editing this chapter.

And I look in the mirror, and I see a girl who made liverwurst sandwiches with her nieces and watched _Schoolhouse Rock_ videos with them, so we could learn about our Nation's independence.

Oh, ... never mind.

Well, okay. None of the characters are based off of anybody else's work. This scenario? I thought it all up myself. Maybe lived a little bit of it. Maybe not. I won't say. People say to me, all the time: 'But don't you want to write your own material instead of _just fanfiction, _`phfina?'

What's wrong with _'just fanfiction,' _by the way, other than that you can't sell it, but you can, it's called _Fifty Shades of Grey, _and was a _Twilight _fanfic first before the author made millions off it. _Millions._

Should I be proud, or ashamed, that this is what I come up with?

You tell me.

But whatever you say, I'm going to keep writing, I guess. My heart hurts too much for these girls not to.

... and now I'm off to Church.

Yeah. I'm not joking. Little `phfina's off to Church. Don't judge, huh? I mean: don't judge my church because I go there. Every barrel has its bad apples.

I wonder if they'd burn me at the stake if they knew? Or if they'd forgive me? I don't know which one would make me feel worse.

**ps:** The opening quote in the summary is from the song "I need a dollar" by Aloe Blacc, and the quote I was thinking the whole time I was writing this chapter was this: 'I can tell someone who has never lived in poverty because they always assume buying from/working for certain places is a "choice".' from MissMxMr or MxGlitterBitch on twitter. And I'm so blessed to have that choice, when so many people, even right here in the town I live in, don't.

**Apology: **Okay, I had to add this after reading a review for this chapter. I mean: why did I write this, huh? Here's my answer:

It's intense stuff, right? Welcome to `phfina's little mind. This is what I live with every day. Oh, well.

I think this chapter was the worst part of the story, 'cause after this either Becca figures something out to grab Grace (and ... what? They live happily ever after?), or she doesn't, and it's game over, right?

Anyway. Most stories, ITRW, are game over. Not violent like this story, just ... the opposite of violent. People just get stuck in their ... misery, be it poverty or abuse or ... whatever, you know? "How's it going, Pete?" "Same ol' same ol'" How many times does that conversation go that way every day, and around the whole world, too, huh?

In this chapter I make it very explicit how people are stuck, and it is ugly. No: it's not just 'ugly,' it's fugly, isn't it?

I see it every day for me, and most everybody I know: people aren't going places, they're just stuck there, and it's not even called 'fugly,' at all, it's called ... just nothing. Just going to your job or just living, or just getting by.

The anxiety is in the waiting, and the not doing anything about it.

So I have to ask myself: what am I doing today about it, me being stuck?

And most days I don't have any answer.

I understand why this chapter would be hard (impossible?) to read. I sure didn't want to write it. I did write it, though. I didn't _like_ writing it, but I did, because it has something very important to say to me.

Now I just have to listen.

The next chapter is smexy, but it's not sweet, as you can probably imagine, and then ... what happens, happens after that.

_Que sera, sera._

We'll see if we can get to a happy ending, right?

In the story, I mean.

The 'happy ending' for my life ...? Well, that's a work in progress. And when I work toward happiness, I progress. And when I don't work toward happiness, I bite my tongue, and say, 'same ol', same ol'' when I'm asked how's 'it' going, but I know exactly what that answer means, and exactly who's fault it is, too.


End file.
